Panjshir rebels claim to have killed over 600 Taliban men
The Taliban group’s fighters advanced deep into the last holdout province of Panjshir on Sunday, while the rebel forces in the valley insist that they have killed as many as 600 Taliban men during their latest round of clashes.
“About 600 Taliban [fighters] have been liquidated in various districts of Panjshir since [Sunday] morning. More than 1,000 Taliban [fighters] have been captured or surrendered themselves,” the Panjshir-based resistance forces’ spokesperson Fahim Dashti tweeted, according to a Sputnik news report, which doesn’t, however, corroborate the rebels’ claim.
Both sides claim to have inflicted heavy losses on the other. Some reports say the fighting between the two sides has slowed down considerably over the past couple of days due to the widespread presence in the valley of land mines.
Afghanistan’s new rulers have pledged to be more accommodating than during their first stint in power, which also came after years of conflict - first the Soviet invasion of 1979, and then a bloody civil war.
They have promised a more “inclusive” government that represents Afghanistan’s complex ethnic make-up - though women are unlikely to be included at the top levels.
But few in Panjshir, a rugged valley north of Kabul that held out for nearly a decade against the Soviet Union’s occupation and also the Taliban’s first rule from 1996-2001, seem to trust their promises.
Taliban official Bilal Karimi on Sunday reported heavy clashes in Panjshir, and while resistance fighters insist they have the Islamists at bay, analysts warned they are struggling.
The Italian aid agency Emergency said Taliban forces had reached the Panjshir village of Anabah, where they run a surgical centre.
“Many people have fled from local villages in recent days,” Emergency said in a statement, adding that it was continuing to provide medical services and treating a “small number of wounded”.
Anabah lies some 25km north inside the 115km-long valley, but unconfirmed reports suggested the Taliban had seized other areas, too.
Bill Roggio, managing editor of the Us-based Long War Journal, said on Sunday that while there was still a “fog of war” with unconfirmed reports the Taliban had captured multiple districts - “it looks bad”.
“The Taliban army has been hardened with 20 years of war, and make no mistake, the Taliban trained an army,” Roggio tweeted on Sunday, adding that “the odds were long” for the Panjshir resistance.
“The Taliban army was injected with a massive amount of weapons and munitions after the US withdrawal and collapse of the ANA (Afghan National Army),” he said.
The Panjshir valley, surrounded by jagged snow-capped peaks, offers a natural defensive advantage, with fighters melting away in the face of advancing forces, then launching ambushes firing from the high tops down into the valley.
Highlighting an escalating humanitarian crisis in the valley, former Afghanistan vice-president Amrullah Saleh has called on United Nations to do its utmost to prevent the Taliban’s onslaught into the resistance stronghold.
In a letter to the UN, Saleh said a “large-scale humanitarian crisis” is occurring across Panjshir province and also in three districts in Baghlan province due to economic blockade, telecommunications blackout and turmoil.