Taliban attacks Panjshir, last stronghold

Since dawn, the Taliban have launched several attacks on the northern district of Panjshir, the only one among Afghanistan’s 34 provinces not under the control of extremist Islamists, but the forces from this stronghold managed to repel the attack.

“Since last night, the Taliban carried out several attacks from western Panjshir against our forces, but all of them were repulsed,” said Fahim Dashti, a spokesman for the so-called Panjer National. The resistance front formed by the forces and the regional government.

The spokesman added that the Taliban suffered heavy losses during the attacks, as about 30 fighters were killed, 15 wounded, and “many of them were captured alive.”

However, the victory rhetoric was not endorsed by the Taliban, who claimed to have launched several attacks on the province and made some progress.

One of them explained that “the operations against the Panshir are led by Qari Vasuddin, the deputy of the Military Committee” of the Taliban, who is also an ethnic Tajik, and hails from Badakhshan province in the northeast of the country. From two Taliban sources consulted by Effie, under the cover of anonymity.

The Taliban indicated that they still had the military capacity to occupy the Panjshir Valley, located about 150 kilometers north of Kabul, by force, but they still hoped that negotiations to end the conflict peacefully would succeed.

Currently, in addition to closing the roads to Panjshir, they have also cut off mobile phone network and internet services for the county and its environs, a move designed to pressure the guerrilla leaders to surrender.

The National Resistance Front in Panjshir is made up of local fighters and the remainder of forces from the former Afghan government, which withdrew from the province when the rest of the country fell to the Taliban this month.

Currently, Panjshir is the only one of the 34 Afghan provinces not under the control of the radical Islamist group, having taken control of the remaining 33 districts in less than two weeks, culminating in the capture of Kabul on August 15.

Andrap district, in the northern province of Baghlan, on the border with Panjshir, is another district still facing the Taliban.

The forces in Panjshir are led by former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh – who styled himself the new president of Afghanistan after Ashraf Ghani fled the country during the invasion of Kabul – and Ahmed Masoud, the son of the late Afghan leader Ahmad Shah. Massoud, “The Lion of the Panshir,” is a legend in standing up to the Soviets and the Taliban.

Panjshir was also the center of resistance against the radical Islamist group during the former Taliban regime, between 1996 and 2001, which ended with the attack of US and NATO forces whose withdrawal was completed at 00:00 local time today, after nearly two decades. presence in the country.