Taliban says hundreds of fighters are heading for Panjshir Valley

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The Taliban said “hundreds” of their fighters were heading for the Panjshir Valley, one of the few areas in Afghanistan not yet controlled by the group.

Since the Taliban invaded Afghanistan, sparks of resistance have started to emerge with ex-government troops gathering in Panjshir, north of Kabul, long known as an anti-Taliban stronghold.

“Hundreds of mujahedin from the Islamic Emirate are heading to the state of Panjshir for control, after local state officials refused to hand it over peacefully,” the group wrote on its Arabic Twitter account on Sunday. .

At the same time, Ahmad Massoud, whose forces control the last major anti-Taliban resistance, said on Sunday that he hoped to hold talks peacefully with the group that seized power in Kabul a week ago but that his forces were ready to fight.

“We want to make the Taliban understand that the only way forward is negotiation,” he told Reuters news agency by telephone from his stronghold in the Panjshir Valley, where he has assembled forces made up of remnants of regular army and special forces units. as well as fighters from the local militia.

“We don’t want a war to break out.”

Massoud, son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of the main leaders of anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan in the 1980s, said his supporters were ready to fight if Taliban forces attempted to invade the valley.

“They want to defend, they want to fight, they want to resist any totalitarian regime. “

However, there was some uncertainty as to whether the operation led by Taliban forces had started. A Taliban official told Reuters news agency that an offensive had been launched on Panjshir. But an aide to Massoud said there was no sign that the column had actually entered the narrow passage into the valley and that there had been no combat reports.

A short video showed a column of captured trucks with the Taliban’s white flag but still bearing their government marks moving along a highway.

In the only confirmed fighting since the fall of Kabul on August 15, anti-Taliban forces last week retook three districts of the northern province of Baghlan, on the border with Panjshir.

However, Massoud said he did not organize the operation which he said was carried out by local militias reacting to “brutality” in the area.

Massoud called for an inclusive and broad government in Kabul representing all of Afghanistan’s different ethnic groups and said a “totalitarian regime” should not be recognized by the international community.

Meanwhile, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, a prominent Taliban figure currently in charge of security in Kabul, echoed the group’s claims that “All Afghans” should feel safe under their Islamic emirate, and that a “general amnesty” was granted in the 34 provinces of the country.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, Haqqani, whose associates also play a leading role in establishing security in the capital, said the Taliban were working to restore order and security in a country which has seen more than four decades of war.

“If we can defeat the superpowers, we can certainly ensure the safety of the Afghan people,” said Haqqani, who is also a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war.

But many Afghans are skeptical that Haqqani – a leader of the Haqqani network known to be the most brutal and violent group associated with the Taliban and a man labeled a “terrorist” by the United States and the United Nations – will bring peace and security. in Afghanistan.

Victoria Fontan, professor of peace studies at the American University of Afghanistan, told Al Jazeera that she had heard staff members and students in Kabul express concern about Taliban searches of their neighborhoods.

“There were no direct threats, but searches were carried out to determine who works for whom and who had ties to coalition forces,” she said, speaking from Paris.

“And then people are put on a list and they are afraid that when the eyes of the international community are elsewhere, there will be the start of a massive wave of repercussions against these people.”

Chaos, deaths at Kabul airport

Meanwhile, thousands of people continued to gather at Kabul airport on Sunday, desperately hoping to flee the Taliban regime.

The Taliban fired into the air and used batons to force people into orderly queues outside Kabul airport, witnesses said, a day after the British military said seven people had been killed in a crash at the gates.

There were no serious injuries as of Sunday as gunmen pushed back the crowds, witnesses said, and Washington said it was now able to get large numbers of Americans into the airport.

A NATO official said at least 20 people had died in the past seven days in and around the airport. Some were shot and others died in stampede, witnesses said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday called a virtual meeting of leaders of the G7 rich countries to “ensure safe evacuations, prevent a humanitarian crisis and support the Afghan people”.

US airlines to help with evacuations

The United States on Sunday ordered six commercial airlines to help transport people after their evacuation from Afghanistan.

The Pentagon said it called in 18 commercial jets from United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air and others to transport the evacuees from temporary sites, which include a dozen countries in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Army Major General William Taylor said last week that the United States evacuated 17,000 people, including 2,500 Americans, from Kabul.

The British ambassador to Afghanistan said British authorities had managed to evacuate more than 5,000 people.

In a statement on Twitter, Laurie Bristow said the “huge effort” to get evacuees out of Afghanistan “is gathering pace” but there is still “a tremendous amount of work to be done”.

Australia made four flights to Kabul on Saturday, evacuating more than 300 people, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said.

The Netherlands said they would increase their military presence in Afghanistan to help with evacuation efforts.

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