'Ready for talks,' says Massoud as Taliban claim to have entered capital of Panjshir holdout
Religious scholars have asked the Taliban and the Resistance Front to halt the current conflict, calling the ongoing war illegitimate.
Panjshir leader Ahmad Massoud on Sunday said his Resistance Front is ready to stop fighting if the Taliban stop their attacks and the military movement on Panjshir and Andrab as the struggle between the Taliban and the anti-Taliban forces have been going on for days. "The NRF in principle agree to solve the current problems and put an immediate end to the fighting and continue negotiations. To reach a lasting peace, the NRF is ready to stop fighting on condition that Taliban also stop their attacks and military movements on Panjshir and Andarab," Massoud said in a Facebook post.
Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi said on Twitter the police headquarters and district centre of Rukhah, adjacent to the provincial capital Bazarak, had fallen, and opposition forces had suffered numerous casualties, with large numbers of prisoners and captured vehicles, weapons and ammunition.
Amrullah Saleh asks UN to step in, prevent Taliban onslaught in Panjshir
A number of religious scholars at a gathering in Kabul on Sunday asked the Taliban and the Resistance Front to halt the current conflict, calling it an illegitimate war in the country, Tolo News reported.
The struggle over Panjshir has escalated in the last few days as the Taliban are all set to announce their government in teh country. Former Afghanistan vice president Amrullah Saleh on Sunday wrote a letter to the United Nations highlighting the large-scale humanitarian crisis in Panjshir province. The Taliban, he alleged, blocked all humanitarian services in the valley, snapped telecommunication. "if no attention is paid to this situation, a full-scale human rights and humanitarian catastrophe including starvation and mass killing, even genocide of these people are in the making," Saleh wrote.
Taliban infighting over Panjshir?
Amid reports of Mullah Baradar and the Haqqani network not agreeing on several issues, some reports claimed that one of the issues of disagreement is the Panjshir situation. An ANI report said the celebratory gun firing recently reported from Kabul was actually a power struggle between Mullah Baradar and Anas Haqqani.
(With agency inputs)