Kabul: The Taliban have said that hundreds of their fighters are heading for the Panjshir Valley, which is currently the centre of the resistance in Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban overran Afghanistan, flickers of resistance have begun to emerge with some ex-government troops gathering in the Panjshir, north of Kabul, long known as an anti-Taliban bastion.
“Hundreds of Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are heading towards the state of Panjshir to control it, after local state officials refused to hand it over peacefully,” the group wrote on its Arabic Twitter account.
مئات من مجاهدي #الإمارة_الإسلامية يتوجهون نحو ولاية #بنجشير للسيطرة عليها، بعد رفض مسئولي الولاية المحليين تسليمها بشكل سلمي. pic.twitter.com/FwAYBZeopq
— الإمارة الإسلامية (@alemara_ar) August 22, 2021
In Panjshir, Ahmad Massoud, the son of legendary mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who was assassinated by Al-Qaeda two days before the September 11, 2001 attacks, has sought to assemble a force of around 9,000 people to counter the terrorists, the spokesman, Ali Maisam Nazary.
Anti-Taliban forces took back three districts in the northern province of Baghlan, bordering Panjshir last week. However, Massoud said he did not organise the operation and that it had been carried out by local militia groups reacting to “brutality” in the area.
