Anti-Taliban chief Massoud says negotiation solely method ahead

Ahmad Massoud, chief of Afghanistan’s final main outpost of anti-Taliban resistance, mentioned on Sunday he hoped to carry peaceable talks with the Islamist motion that seized energy in Kabul every week in the past however that his forces had been able to battle.
“We want to make the Taliban realise that the only way forward is through negotiation,” he informed Reuters by phone from his stronghold within the mountainous Panjshir valley northwest of Kabul, the place he has gathered forces made up of remnants of standard military items and particular forces in addition to native militia fighters.
“We do not want a war to break out.”
Massoud, son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of many important leaders of Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet resistance within the Eighties, mentioned his supporters had been able to battle if Taliban forces tried to invade the valley.
“They want to defend, they want to fight, they want to resist against any totalitarian regime.”

However he mentioned he had not organized the seizure of three districts within the northern province of Baghlan bordering Panjshir final week, which he mentioned had been carried out by native militia teams reacting to “brutality” within the space.
Massoud referred to as for an inclusive, broad-based authorities in Kabul representing all of Afghanistan’s completely different ethnic teams and mentioned a “totalitarian regime” shouldn’t be recognised by the worldwide group.

The wreckage of Soviet armoured automobiles that also dot the valley present how arduous Panjshir has been to defeat previously. But many outdoors observers have questioned whether or not Massoud’s forces shall be ready to withstand for lengthy with out outdoors assist.
He mentioned his forces, which one aide mentioned numbered greater than 6,000, would wish worldwide assist if it got here to preventing. But he mentioned they didn’t simply come from Panjshir, a area of Persian-speaking Tajiks lengthy at odds with the Pashtuns who kind the core of the Taliban motion.
“There are many other people from many other provinces who are seeking refuge in the Panjshir valley who are standing with us and who do not want to accept another identity for Afghanistan,” he mentioned.