PANJSHIR NEW FLASHPOINT AMID BID TO FORM GOVT
NRF defiant as Taliban lay siege to region
The Taliban on Wednesday called on fighters in the holdout bastion of the Panjshir Valley to lay down their arms, as the resistance movement said it had repulsed heavy attacks.
The rugged mountain valley with towering snow-capped peaks -- which begins around 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the capital Kabul -- is the centre of Afghanistan's most important pocket of armed anti-Taliban forces.
The National Resistance Front (NRF), comprising antiTaliban fighters and former Afghan security forces, have vowed to defend the enclave as the terror group sends fighters to encircle the area.
"My brothers, we tried our best to solve the Panjshir problem with talks and negotiations... but unfortunately all in vain," senior Taliban official Amir Khan Muttaqi said, in an audio message to the people of the Panjshir posted on Twitter.
"Now that the talks have failed and Mujahiddin (Taliban) have surrounded Panjshir, there are still people inside that don't want the problems to be solved peacefully," he added. "Now it is up to you to talk to them," the Taliban message to the Panjshir people said. "Those who want to fight, tell them it is enough."
Bismillah Mohammadi, Afghanistan's defence minister before the government fell last month, said Taliban had launched a renewed assault on Panjshir on Tuesday night.
‘'Try their luck'
As the last US soldiers boarded their flight out of Afghanistan in the Kabul dark late Monday, residents of Panjshir said the Taliban had attacked the valley on two fronts -- the Khawak pass in the west, and from Shotol to the south.
"Perhaps they wanted to try their luck," NRF official Fahim Dashti said in a video posted Tuesday by the US broadcaster Voice of America's Dari language service. "By the grace of God, luck wasn't on their side."
"We defended it during the era of the Russians, the era of the British, the previous era of the Taliban... we will continue to defend it," one fighter said.