Dialogue between Taliban and resistance in Afghanistan has failed again and there have been new armed attacks in Panjshir

The failure of the negotiations led this Wednesday to intensify the attacks of the Taliban in an attempt to seize the northern region of Panjshir, the only one of the 34 Afghan provinces not to be under control of the Islamist formation after its recent conquest of Afghanistan.

The Taliban launched attacks last night, which continued today, “From various directions and areas in the neighboring provinces of Parwan and Baghlan but their attacks were repulsed and were unsuccessful,” Fahim Dashti, spokesman for the so-called Panjshir National Resistance Front, said in a statement.

The fighting caused heavy losses: the Taliban lost 115 of their fighters, 200 were wounded and 35 others were captured alive, he stressed.

For its part, Taliban argued they had stepped up fighting in Panjshir after talks failed with the insurgent leaders, who oppose the Islamist regime.

“We have made many efforts to resolve the Panjshir issue through negotiations, but it ended without any progress. Now the The mujahedin are prepared and have surrounded the Panjshir from all directions ”, Mullah Amir Khan Mutaqi, one of the main Taliban leaders, explained in a message.

The mullah asked the people of Panjshir to join the Taliban to avoid further clashes, since the local guerrillas supported by the Afghan troops who withdrew to the region after the conquest of the insurgents from the rest of the country will not be able to face them.

“They couldn’t resist when they were supported by the United States and NATO, how are they going to be able to do anything now?” he wondered.

Taliban fighters began their offensive against Panjshir on August 30, after cutting the routes by which supplies reach the region and shutting down all lines of mobile phone and Internet service.

But today Panjshir remains the only one of the 34 Afghan provinces not to have come under the control of the Taliban, after capturing the remaining 33 in less than two weeks, a process that culminated on August 15 with the capture of Kabul.

The district of Andarab in the northern province of Baghlan, on the border with Panjshir, is another of the territories which continues to face the Taliban.

Panjshir forces are led by the former Afghan vice president, Amrullah Saleh, new self-proclaimed president of Afghanistan after former president Ashraf Ghani and Ahmad Massoud fled the country during the takeover of Kabul, son of the late Afghan commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, “the lion of Panjshir”, a legend for having stood up to the Soviets and the Taliban.

The Panjshir was also the center of resistance against the Islamist group under the previous Taliban regime, between 1996 and 2001., which ended with the American invasion which, Monday evening, ended after nearly two decades of war.

(With information from EFE)

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