Afghan Chief Sees Disaster if U.S. Further Aids Rebels : Civil war: But Najibullah says Soviets will increase help for his regime. He backs away from offers to quit.

KABUL, Afghanistan —  Wearing the gray leisure suit and smile of a suburban politician, Afghanistan’s President Najibullah warned Friday of “catastrophic consequences” for his nation if the U.S. Congress continues arming and funding the moujahedeen resistance in a vote scheduled for later this month.

Asserting that the current spring “fighting season” has already caused unprecedented death and destruction, the Afghan strongman appealed for a new era in U.S.-Afghan relations, including economic and technical assistance to help rebuild his ravaged nation. Twelve years of civil war have left more than 1 million Afghans dead, 4 million others as refugees in neighboring Pakistan and Iran, and much of the land a bombed-out ruin.

But, during a wide-ranging interview in his wood-paneled Kabul office, Najibullah made it clear that his Soviet allies have pledged to continue, and actually increase, their military and economic aid to his regime. He also backed away from earlier offers to resign as a step toward a political solution to one of the world’s most prolonged conflicts.

Throughout the interview, though, Najibullah, a former head of Afghanistan’s dreaded, Soviet-trained secret police, tried to cast himself as a born-again democrat who has learned from the brutality and mistakes of his past. His carefully chosen words were not those of a dictator presiding over a nation at war, but of a candidate eager to stand for election on the platform of peace. Nicknamed “The Ox” by many outsiders, the burly president spoke in the manner of a politician walking a tightrope between coercion and contrition--a balancing act that has succeeded in placing Najibullah among the world’s most durable strongmen.

In the five years since he came to power in Kabul, Najibullah not only presided over the withdrawal of the 110,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan but, in the past year, has abandoned the founding principles of his once-Communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

He has freed the Afghan economy, turning to a free-market approach. He has backed away from the party’s former secular stand against fundamentalist Islam, and he has continually portrayed his ruling party, recently renamed the Homeland Party, as a force for peace that rejects a military solution to the civil conflict.

At the same time, Najibullah and his key aides launched a propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting the U.S.- and Pakistani-backed moujahedeen, especially in the eyes of the West, as war-mongering, wild-eyed fundamentalists who prefer war to democracy. On Friday, the Afghan leader stressed again and again that he now blames Pakistan and its fundamentalist-dominated intelligence agency far more than the United States for the continuing conflict.

“If Najib’s regime is replaced, what kind of regime is going to replace it?” Najibullah asked, referring to himself as he often does in the third person. “Will we be a regime of cruelty and atrocity, which takes life from the people, or will it be a regime which gives life to the people?

“Shall we give a chance to democracy? Shall we give a chance to human rights? Or shall we defend terrorism, homicide and killings?”

It was in that context that Najibullah appealed for the United States to end its decade of covert military and economic aid to the moujahedeen --an arms pipeline through Pakistan that funneled billions of dollars in weapons to the guerrillas and helped cause the Soviet invasion force to withdraw more than two years ago.

He asserted that last month’s guerrilla capture of Khost, a city near the Pakistan border, rather than being a vindication of U.S. aid to the moujahedeen, only escalated the bloodshed.

“In response to Khost, we dealt a heavy blow on one of the strategic spots that was in the hands of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” Najibullah added, referring to the government’s assault on key bases of the most radical fundamentalist among the seven rebel leaders in the Logar Valley south of Kabul.

“Once again, the reality of war brings nothing but death and loss. Only one result is left--peace for the people, peace for the country.”

Najibullah himself is widely believed to have committed many of the very atrocities he now attributes to his enemies, and his air force has been responsible for large-scale, continuing bombardments that have killed tens of thousands of civilians.

A ruthless leader who ordered thousands of Afghans imprisoned, tortured or executed while serving as internal security chief and later as president during the Soviet occupation, Najibullah clearly has employed an iron fist as often as he has the rhetoric of reform to survive continuing threats of coup plots against his government, assassination attempts against his person and even a mutiny in his air force last year that included bombing raids that missed his office by a scant 20 feet.

Despite Najibullah’s assertions that he is “more confident” than ever that his armed forces now are united behind him, citing the air force’s participation in the recent Logar offensive as evidence, most diplomatic analysts here said that the fall of Khost has emboldened the president’s enemies inside the ruling party and the army.

“If another city falls, forget it,” one veteran diplomat said. “Not only is Najibullah in danger then, but I’ll be afraid for my own safety on the streets here.”

Just two months ago, Najibullah reportedly jailed scores of military officers and politicians to avert a coup, and although his personal security force--a unit he trusts only his brother to command--has relaxed some protective measures since last year, all visitors are still required to pass through a metal detector before entering his office.

For his key supporters within the party, neither Najibullah’s reputation for past brutality nor his recent failure on the battlefield have diminished their preference for him over any other alternative.

“Why should Najibullah not be there, because he was head of Khad (the Afghan secret police) and has killed a number of people?” asked Farid Ahmed Mazdak, the 34-year-old deputy chairman of the ruling party. “Who has not killed any in this war?”

Referring to fundamentalist rebel leader Hekmatyar, Mazdak added angrily: “He has killed more people than the number of hairs in his beard. Don’t we have the right to say political settlement (can occur) only without this man?”

Although Najibullah remains deeply feared and often disliked by many Afghans interviewed in private and on the streets of this capital city, most agree that they prefer him to the fundamentalist guerrillas, who have vowed to establish an orthodox Islamic government in Kabul if they come to power.

One diplomatic analyst who has lived in Kabul for several years concluded that Najibullah’s secret of survival lies largely in his situation as not only the lesser of evils, but also as the only alternative to a power vacuum that could make Afghanistan into another Lebanon.

“He dances very well, but the question is, who else is there?” the diplomat said. “He is not stupid. He expresses himself very well. But Soviet support is critical for his survival and it certainly has not wavered. If anything, the (Soviet) hard-liners seem to be even more supportive than ever.

“And the bottom-line question is, just who would, or could, take over for Najibullah? Who is there who could run this crazy show? And that, I guess, is the real source of his survival.”