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Taliban claim Panjshir has fallen, resistance battles on
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the province, which is north of the capital, was now “captured” by their fighters.
Taliban fighters broke out into prayers as their banner fluttered from a flagpole in Panjshir on Monday, after the hardline group announced the capture of the last pocket of resistance to their rule in Afghanistan. After their blitz through Afghanistan last month, the Taliban said that they have seized the last province not in their control, and overrun the forces opposing their takeover.
But the resistance leaders -- including the son of the iconic anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud -- denied giving up the fight, and called on Afghan people for an uprising.
Thousands of Taliban fighters charged into eight districts of Panjshir province overnight, according to witnesses from the area who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the province, which is north of the capital, was now “captured” by their fighters.
“With this victory, our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war,” Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul later on Monday. “We tried our best to solve the problem through negotiations, and they rejected talks and then we had to send our forces to fight.”
The National Resistance Front (NRF) admitted to suffering heavy losses. Among them was spokesperson Fahim Dashty -- a well-known Afghan journalist -- and top commander General Abdul Wudod Zara.
But Massoud’s message on Monday was one of fighting bravado. “We are in Panjshir and our Resistance will continue,” he said on Twitter.
In another audio message after the Taliban’s declarations, he called for Afghans to “rise up”.
“For those who want to take up arms, we are with you. For those who will resort to protest, we will stand next to you,” Massoud, who leads a force drawn from the remnants of the regular Afghan army as well as local militia fighters, said.
His exact whereabouts remain unclear, and there has been no statement from former vice-president Amrullah Saleh.
Taliban spokesman Mujahid said he had been told that Massoud and Saleh had escaped to neighbouring Tajikistan. The group also warned that anyone who “tries to start an insurgency” against them “will be hit hard”.
Still, like others in the resistance, Ali Maisam Nazary, head of foreign relations at NRF, said the Taliban’s claim of victory was false. “The NRF forces are present in all strategic positions across the valley to continue the fight,” he said on his Facebook page.
Experts have long doubted that the holdout efforts, despite Panjshir’s geographic advantage, could have succeeded long-term against the Taliban, whose rapid advance through Afghanistan met little resistance in the final days of America’s 20-year war in the country.
Panjshir, mainly inhabited by ethnic Tajik people, has immense symbolic value in Afghanistan as the area that has resisted occupation by invaders in the past.
Nestled in the towering Hindu Kush mountains, the valley has a single narrow entrance. Local fighters held off the Soviets there in the 1980s and also, for a brief time, the Taliban a decade later under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud.
‘OUR BROTHERS’
Taliban stuck to their assurances about having adopted a more moderate stand this time around. In the late 1990s, the last time they were in power, they became global pariahs for their harsh interpretation of Islamic law and restrictions on women.
On Monday, they sought to assure the people of Panjshir, who are ethnically distinct from the Pashtun-dominated Taliban, that there would be no “discriminatory act against them”.
“They are our brothers and would work together for a joint purpose and welfare of the country,” Mujahid said.
INTERIM GOVT
As they undertake a mammoth transition into overseeing key institutions and cities of hundreds of thousands of people, Mujahid said an interim government would first be announced, allowing for later changes.
“Final decisions have been taken, we are now working on the technical issues,” he said at the press conference.
The spokesperson said the Taliban will announce a new government “within days” — one that would be inclusive, he said, without elaborating.
Once the government is formed, members of the former Afghan army and security forces would be asked to return to work to form an army with Taliban fighters, he added.
FLURRY OF DIPLOMACY
The international community too is coming to terms with the new Taliban regime.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken landed on Monday in Qatar, a key player in the Afghan saga. Qatar, which hosts a major US military base, has been the gateway for 55,000 people airlifted out of Afghanistan, nearly half the total evacuated by US-led forces after the Taliban takeover on August 15.
Blinken was expected to speak to the Qataris about efforts alongside Turkey to reopen Kabul’s airport, which is necessary for flying in badly needed humanitarian aid and evacuating remaining Afghans.
The US withdrew its last troops a week ago, and ended a harrowing airlift to evacuate Western citizens and their Afghan allies that was marred by scenes of desperation and horrific violence.
During that evacuation, thousands of people descended on Kabul’s airport, hoping to flee the country because they feared what the Taliban’s rule might hold, given their history of repression, particularly of women. In the last days of the US’s final departure on August 30, an Islamic State suicide bomber targeted the crowds, killing 169 Afghans and 13 American service members.
Many people are still hoping to leave the country, but with Kabul’s airport not yet running international flights, their choices are few. In the country’s north, officials said on Sunday that at least four planes chartered to evacuate several hundred people have been unable to leave the country for days.
On Monday, the US confirmed its first overland extraction since it ended its air evacuation efforts.
It helped a family of four American citizens to flee through an overland route, according to an American official, who did not give details of the evacuation or say which country they went to, citing security reasons and the need to preserve the possibility of using the route again.
