Aerial firing by Taliban fighters to celebrate the group’s alleged conquest of Panjshir Valley has killed several people, according to multiple media reports. At least 17 people were killed and 41 wounded in incidents of gun firing on Friday night in Kabul, Afghanistan’s Tolo News reported. An official at Emergency Hospital in Kabul, however, told Associated Press that two people were killed and 12 wounded after Taliban fighters in the capital fired their weapons into the air in celebration.

Footage posted on Twitter by local outlet Asvaka News Agency showed people lining up outside the Kabul Surgical Centre, run by a non-governmental organisation, around midnight.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihulla Mujahid warned against firing into the air.

“Attention, Mujahidin in Kabul city and all over the country: Avoid firing in the air and give thanks to Allah instead. Weapons and ammunition are in your hands, no one has the right to waste them. Cold bullets are more likely to harm civilians; So don’t shoot unnecessarily,” he tweeted.

The Taliban claim to have seized control of Panjshir Valley, the region where Afghanistan’s deposed Vice President Amrullah Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, the son of famed guerrilla commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, have assembled a fighting force under the banner of the National Resistance Front. Saleh, who fled Kabul after the Taliban’s takeover of the capital city on August 15, rejected reports of Panjshir being under the group’s command.

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He 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.

Just like the Soviets in 1980s, the Taliban were unable to capture Panjshir from the late Ahmad Shah Massoud-led Northern Alliance during their rule over the country between 1996 and 2001.

Ahmad also dismissed news of Panjshir conquests as a lie being circulated on Pakistani media.