Will Panjshir Valley be the Taliban’s Waterloo?

An undeclared ceasefire between the Resistance forces and Taliban was in place till Saturday evening but talks have failed over the Taliban’s insistence that Amrullah Saleh be handed over to them. Ceasefire has been broken.

The Taliban understand how difficult it is to capture Afghanistan’s Panjshir valley. They know that it is a sinkhole that can make them face their Waterloo. But without bagging Panjshir, the Taliban’s victory is incomplete. Amrullah Saleh, the caretaker President of Afghanistan and the man leading the Resistance Movement, chose to fall back to Panjshir in the wake of the Taliban’s rapid onslaught, pushing the Americans on the backfoot and capturing the seat of power in Kabul. In the past, Panjshir valley has always remained unconquered. Despite several attempts by the Soviet forces, they too gave up on it, as the typical terrain here favours the defender, with only one major road passing through the valley. Several smaller roads jut out of the main artery only to end abruptly or lead to “killing grounds”. To make things worse, the CIA had helped the Afghans construct a huge network of large tunnels and underground complexes in Panjshir, to withstand extremely heavy punishment without collapsing, while providing shelter to almost 50,000 people.

Approaching this valley is a big challenge. It has two prominent passes that are the only two gateways it has to the outside world. The Khawak Pass connects it with Afghanistan’s Baghlan province and the Anjuman pass connects it to the Badakhshan province. Apart from these two passes, there is another route through Jabal Siraj, which connects Panjshir with Bagram and Kabul, but that route is not significant for a large force to enter the valley. The topography of the two passes mentioned here is also complicated and any advancing force can be stopped easily by a small group of fighters. In addition, Charikar is yet another place through which some movement is possible.

So laying siege to Panjshir valley, which has several districts within, is not practical; also, the Taliban do not possess the capacity of laying such a siege. Panjshir can hold out for a long period. Apparently, arms and ammunition manufacturing capabilities are there within to cater to operational logistics.

To give a perspective, in the seventh attack on Panjshir during April-september 1984, more than 30,000 Soviet soldiers were used against 12,000-odd Afghan soldiers, out of whom more than 2,000 were locals from the Panjshir valley itself. More than 400 fighter jets and helicopters and 160 tanks and hundreds of vehicles were used in the attack. The Marshal of the Soviet Union, Sergei Sokolov himself led the attack. Despite this, the Soviets couldn’t capture Panjshir. Northern Alliance commander Ahmed Massoud had an inkling of the Soviet plans and had understood their tactics. He en