ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Afghan rebel leaders Saturday rejected a four-day cease-fire offer by Afghan President Najibullah, scheduled to begin on New Year's Day.
'Real security will prevail in Afghanistan only when an Islamic government is set up in place of the present regime in Kabul,' Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the seven leaders of the Pakistan-based Afghan resistance alliance, said in a statement.
He said the alliance rejected Najibullah's proposal.
The Soviet news agency Tass Friday said Najibullah, in a nationally televised speech, called for a halt to all offensive operations between Jan. 1 until Jan. 5, when he said it would be up to the rebels to decide if they want to participate in and continue the cease-fire.
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made a similar appeal for a truce beginning Jan. 1 in his Dec. 7 speech before the United Nations General Assembly in New York. His call drew a negative response from the Afghan rebel leaders.
'An order was issued to all units of the Afghan armed forces to observe a cease-fire from Jan. 1 to Jan. 45 on condition that the opposite side will refrain from direct attacks,' Najibullah said in his speech.
'We invite all our opponents to stop hostilities in the country starting from Jan. 1 for the sake of the restoration of peace and the saving of the Afghan nation,' Najibullah said.
The offer came amid a diplomatic offensive by Moscow to try to reach agreement on a coalition government in Kabul that would not be anti-Moscow before the scheduled completion on Feb. 15 of its troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Soviets officials this month held the first high-level direct talks rebel leaders, in the Saudi Arabian port of Taif, and later met in Rome with the exiled king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah.
The Soviet pullout of its 100,300 troops began May 15 under the terms of U.N.-mediated accords signed in Geneva on April 14. But Moscow suspended the withdrawal last month in the face of military successes by the guerrillas, who are backed by the United States, China and some Middle East nations.
