Afghan resistance front denies Taliban claims of Panjshir victory

Taliban claim to have seized control of Panjshir Valley, the region where Afghanistan’s former Vice President Amrullah Saleh had fled to cobble up an alliance against the group after the fall of Kabul on August 15. The Taliban were in control of the entire Afghanistan as “troublemakers have been defeated and Panjshir is now under our command,” Reuters quoted an unnamed commander of the group as saying.

While Taliban fighters were celebrating the alleged victory with gunfire in Kabul, Saleh said the “resistance forces” had held their ground. “There is no doubt we are in a difficult situation. We are under invasion by the Taliban,” he said in a video clip posted on Twitter by a BBC World journalist.

Saleh declared himself the caretaker president of Afghanistan after Ashraf Ghani fled the country as the Taliban seized Afghanistan’s capital city on August 15.

Panjshir is tucked in the Hindu Kush mountains, just 150 km from Kabul, and its natural defenses had proven impregnable for the Taliban to wrest the valley from the Ahmad Shah Massoud-led Northern Alliance during their rule over the country between 1996 and 2001.

The famous guerrilla commander defended the valley against the Soviets and Taliban until his assassination in 2001.

Massoud’s son Ahmad, who along with Saleh announced a guerrilla campaign against the Taliban, said the news of Panjshir conquests was a lie being circulated on Pakistani media. With Afghan security forces facing a rout within a span of weeks across the country, Panjshir was being once again seen as the “last stronghold” against the Taliban, especially in wake of Saleh and Ahmad’s announcement of a “National Resistance Front” against the group.

Ali Nazary, the National Resistance Front’s head of foreign relations, who is currently in the US, also denied reports of the Taliban’s takeover of Panjshir. “The Taliban propaganda machine is trying to divert attention, is trying to spread propaganda, to weaken morale in Kabul and elsewhere,” Nazary told NPR.