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According to reports, fighting between the Taliban and resistance forces took place in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley on Saturday, which was the last area in the country to fight an armed group.
A spokesperson for the Afghan National Resistance Front (NRF) stated that the Taliban troops reached the Darband Heights on the border between Kabisa Province and Panjshir, but were repelled.
“The defense of the Afghan stronghold is unbreakable,” Fahim Dashti said in a tweet.
A Taliban source said that the fighting in Panjshir was still going on, but because the road to the capital Bazarak and the road to the governor’s residence were covered with landmines, the fighting progressed slowly. “Demining and offensive are going on at the same time,” the source said.
Facing the challenge of transforming from a rebel to a ruler, the Taliban seemed determined to stifle Panjshir’s resistance before declaring who would lead the country after the U.S. withdrawal on Monday (which should have ended the two decades of war).
But Panjshir, who opposed the Soviet occupation and the first rule of the Taliban from 1996 to 2001, persisted for nearly ten years and persevered stubbornly.
It is understood that NRF fighters composed of anti-Taliban militias and former Afghan security forces have stored an important armory in a valley 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kabul, guarded by a narrow canyon.
‘In the invasion’
Overnight, celebratory gunfire sounded in the capital Kabul, and rumors that the valley had fallen. The Kabul Emergency Hospital stated that the Taliban issued a stern warning on Twitter, warning its fighters to stop. Two people were killed in a salvo and 20 others were injured.
“Avoid shooting in the air, but thank God,” said chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who is expected to become the information minister of the new regime.
“The weapons and bullets given to you are public property. No one has the right to waste them. Bullets can also injure civilians. Don’t shoot for nothing.”
In Panjshir, former Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who was hiding with Ahmed Masood, the son of anti-Taliban commander Ahmed Shah Masood, admitted to the dangerous situation of NRF.
“The situation is very difficult. We have been invaded all the time,” Saleh said in the video. “The resistance continues and will continue.”
Tweets from the Taliban and the resistance movement indicate that key areas of Parian have changed hands many times in the past few days, but this cannot be independently verified.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the US General Mark Milli emphasized Panjshir’s fragile situation.
“My military estimate is that the conditions of the civil war may develop. I don’t know if the Taliban can consolidate power and establish governance,” Milli told Fox News at Ramstein Air Base in Germany on Saturday.
Milli said that if they fail to do so, it will “in turn lead to the reorganization of Al Qaeda or the growth of the Islamic State or countless other terrorist organizations” in the next three years.
Aid talks
Far away from the valley, the international community is accepting the need to deal with the new Taliban regime through a series of diplomatic means.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Brinken will arrive in Qatar on Sunday. Qatar is a key participant in the situation in Afghanistan and the seat of the Taliban’s political office.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will also convene a high-level meeting on Afghanistan in Geneva on September 13, focusing on humanitarian assistance to the country.
The new rulers of Afghanistan promised to be more tolerant than when they first took power, and this also happened after years of conflict—first the Soviet invasion in 1979, and then the bloody civil war.
They promised to create a more “inclusive” government that represents Afghanistan’s complex ethnic makeup-although women are unlikely to be included in the top ranks.
At the same time, the Afghan capital showed some signs of returning to normal.
On Saturday, after the airport runway was repaired, the first commercial flight flew from Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif. The Qatar ambassador to Afghanistan also stated that a technical team could reopen Kabul Airport to receive assistance.
The United Nations has restarted humanitarian flights to parts of Afghanistan, while the country’s flagship airline, Ariane Afghan Airlines, resumed domestic flights on Friday, and the United Arab Emirates sent a plane carrying “emergency medical and Food aid” aircraft.
Since the United States completed the evacuation of Taliban diplomats, foreigners and Afghans on August 30, the airport has been closed. However, tens of thousands of people could not fly out.
Mujahid of the Taliban also said that one of the capital’s major foreign exchange dealers has reopened.
The impoverished Afghan economy was thrown into chaos due to the takeover of the Taliban. Many banks went bankrupt and there was a shortage of cash.
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