Taliban sending fighters to opposition stronghold in northern Afghanistan

The Taliban is sending fighters to Panjshir, an anti-Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan, as the insurgent group works to tighten its grip on the country and seize the last remaining province.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, announced in a statement on Monday that resistance forces are “surrounded,” according to The Washington Post. He said the fighters were “at the gate of Panjshir.”

Mujahid added that the insurgent group would prefer to bypass future fighting and instead “resolve the issue peacefully through negotiations,” the Post reported.

A Taliban fighter, however, told the Post that the militant group decided to send fighters into Panjshir because conversations with the resistance group “couldn’t yield any results.”

Fighters with the resistance group have reportedly been preparing for a potential advance by the Taliban.

Fahim Qiami, an aide to resistance leaders, told the Post, “Currently, there is calm, and no fighting going on. But the forces in Panjshir are ready to fight back, if anything happens.”

One of the anti-Taliban leaders in the valley is Ahmad Massoud, the son of a notable military commander who fought the Soviets and later the Taliban before being assassinated, according to the Post.

Massoud told Reuters on Sunday that the resistance group would like to hold peaceful talks with the Taliban but that his personnel were ready to fight if the insurgents invaded.

“We want to make the Taliban realise that the only way forward is through negotiation,” Massoud told Reuters from the Panjshir valley. “We do not want a war to break out.”

“They want to defend, they want to fight, they want to resist against any totalitarian regime,” he said of his fighters.

He also penned an op-ed in the Post last week in which he said the resistance forces “will defend Panjshir as the last bastion of Afghan freedom.”

He said the group is “prepared to once again take on the Taliban.”

“We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew this day might come,” he added.

Attention is now focused on Panjshir, as it is the final province in Afghanistan that has not fallen to the Taliban.

The insurgent group seized the other 33 provinces in recent weeks amid the United States’ withdrawal of its troops. The effort reached a turning point earlier this month when the capital city of Kabul was overrun.