The Taliban on Sunday said they have captured all districts of Panjshir province, even as the National Resistance Front (NRF) vowed to keep up their struggle against the Taliban.
“With this victory, our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war,” chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.
An image posted on social media by the Taliban showed its fighters at the governor’s office of Panjshir province.
However, the National Resistance Front (NRF) – made up of anti-Taliban militia and former Afghan security forces – said its fighters were still present in “strategic positions” across the valley, and that they were continuing the struggle.
“We assure the people of Afghanistan that the struggle against the Taliban and their partners will continue until justice and freedom prevails,” the NRF tweeted in English.
Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the Resistance Front, in an audio message on his Facebook page, said the resistance forces are still present in Panjshir and continue to fight Taliban forces. He called on the people to rise up against the Taliban. He said the Resistance Front is invincible.
Late last night, the NRF acknowledged suffering major battlefield losses in Panjshir and called for a ceasefire.
The NRF includes local fighters loyal to Ahmad Massoud – the son of the famous anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud – as well as remnants of the Afghan military that retreated to the Panjshir Valley.
The group said in a tweet yesterday that spokesman Fahim Dashty – a well-known Afghan journalist – and General Abdul Wudod Zara had been killed in the latest fighting.
The NRF had vowed to fight the Taliban but also said it was willing to negotiate with the Islamists. But initial contact did not lead to a breakthrough.
The Panjshir Valley is famed for being the site of resistance to Soviet forces in the 1980s and the Taliban in the late 1990s.
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