Afghan resistance forces vow to fight as Taliban say Panjshir Valley 'under siege'

The Taliban say hundreds of their militants have laid siege to Panjshir Valley, an anti-Taliban bastion where resistance forces have also mobilized to defend the key territory not yet seized by the group.

The Taliban declared on Sunday that militants were heading to the valley north of Kabul, as reports emerged that some former government troops have joined local resistance fighters in Panjshir to fend off a potential offensive by the group that took control of the capital Kabul last week.

The Taliban said on Monday their fighters had surrounded resistance forces holed up in the valley but were looking to negotiate rather than mount an assault.

Taliban militants "are stationed near Panjshir," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted, saying they had the mountainous area surrounded on three sides. "The Islamic Emirate is trying to resolve this issue peacefully," he added.

On Sunday, the Taliban gave four hours to Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, to surrender, local press outlets reported. Massoud responded by saying that Panjshir would not surrender and that locals were ready to fight.

Former Afghan vice president Amrullah Saleh is also in Panjshir, and photos posted on social media in recent days have shown him in talks with Massoud.

The Taliban said the goal of the operation in Panjshir is to unite the country under their rule.

"Our goal is to unite the country, there can be no different regimes. However, some people want to stir trouble. If problems cannot be solved through mutual understanding, the last solution is war," a spokesman said in an interview with Saudi-based broadcaster al-Hadath.

Massoud, whose forces control the last significant anti-Taliban holdout, expressed optimism to hold talks peacefully with the militant group, but further insisted that they were prepared to fight.

“We want to make the Taliban realize that the only way forward is through negotiation,” Massoud said in a conciliatory tone during a telephone interview with Reuters from his stronghold in Panjshir. “We do not want a war to break out.”

Afghan 'resistance' in Panjshir valley says ready for anti-Taliban fight

The mountainous Panjshir valley remains the only holdout against the Taliban after the militants took control of Afghanistan.

Massoud, son of the revered former commander Ahmad Shah Massoud -- one of the top heroes of Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s who later opposed the Taliban rule in the late 1990s and was assassinated in 2001 -- said his supporters would resist a Taliban regime again.

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

The resistance leader further called for a comprehensive government to rule the country with the participation of the Taliban, adding that war will be "unavoidable" if the Taliban refuse dialogue, according to local media.

Massoud dismissed reports of the Taliban siege, saying there were no signs that the militants had actually entered the narrow pass into the valley and there had been no reports of clashes.

Meanwhile, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, a leading Taliban figure currently in charge of security for Kabul, echoed the group’s insistence that “all Afghans” should feel safe under their rule and that a “general amnesty” has been granted across all 34 provinces.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, Haqqani emphasized that the Taliban were working to restore order and safety to a nation that has seen more than four decades of war.

“If we can defeat superpowers, surely we can provide safety to the Afghan people,” added Haqqani, who is also a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war.

In the only confirmed fighting since the fall of Kabul, anti-Taliban forces reportedly recaptured three districts in the northern province of Baghlan, bordering Panjshir, last week.

However, Massoud insisted that he had not organized the operation, which he said had been carried out by local militia groups reacting to “brutality” in the area.

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