The chief of the Afghan opposition group resisting Taliban forces within the Panjshir valley north of Kabul mentioned on Sunday he welcomed proposals from non secular students for a negotiated settlement to finish the preventing.
Ahmad Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), made the announcement on the group’s Facebook web page. Earlier, Taliban forces mentioned that they had fought their approach into the provincial capital of Panjshir after securing the encircling districts.
The Islamist Taliban took management of the remainder of Afghanistan three weeks in the past, taking energy in Kabul on Aug. 15 after the Western-backed authorities collapsed and President Ashraf Ghani fled the nation.
“The NRF in principle agree to solve the current problems and put an immediate end to the fighting and continue negotiations,” Massoud mentioned within the Facebook publish. “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,” he mentioned, referring to a district within the neighbouring province of Baghlan.
A big gathering of all sides with the Ulema council of spiritual students may then be held, he mentioned. Earlier, Afghan media retailers reported that non secular students had known as on the Taliban to simply accept a negotiated settlement to finish the preventing in Panjshir. There was no rapid response from the Taliban.
On Sunday, the NRFA additionally confirmed that its most important spokesman, Fahim Dashti, had been killed in the course of the day. Dashti had survived the suicide assault that killed Massoud’s father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, on Sept. 9, 2001, simply days earlier than the Sept. 11 assaults on the United States. He had been one of many most important sources of updates from the realm because the Taliban pressed in on opposition forces, issuing a defiant collection of statements on Twitter, vowing that resistance would proceed.
Massoud, who leads a pressure made up of remnants of standard Afghan military and particular forces models in addition to native militia fighters, known as for a negotiated settlement with the Taliban earlier than the preventing broke out round every week in the past. Several makes an attempt at talks have been held however finally broke down, with all sides blaming the opposite for his or her failure.
Men put together for protection towards the Taliban in Panjshir, Afghanistan on Aug. 22, 2021. (Aamaj News Agency through Reuters)
Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi mentioned earlier on Sunday that their forces had made it into the provincial capital, Bazarak, and had captured giant portions of weapons and ammunition.
Rugged Valley
Panjshir, a rugged mountain valley nonetheless suffering from the wreckage of Soviet tanks destroyed in the course of the lengthy conflict within the Nineteen Eighties to oust the Soviet presence, has proved very troublesome to beat up to now.
Under Ahmad Shah Massoud, the area lengthy resisted management by each the invading Soviet military and by the Taliban authorities that beforehand dominated from 1996 to 2001. But that effort was helped by provide routes main north to the border, which have been closed off by the Taliban’s sweeping victory final month.
The Panjshir preventing has been probably the most distinguished instance of resistance to the Taliban. But small particular person protests for girls’s rights or in defence of the inexperienced, purple and black flag of Afghanistan have additionally been held in numerous cities.
