The National Resistance Front is dominated by members of the Tajik ethnic group, whereas the Taliban are Pashtun-dominated.
Panjshir was a bastion of anti-Taliban resistance during the group’s first stint in power in the 1990s.
In recent days, fighters belonging to the National Resistance Front launched a guerrilla attack on Taliban forces in the area, who responded by sending a large number of reinforcements to Panjshir.
The NRF is headed by Ahmad Massoud, the son of a legendary anti-Taliban fighter, who fled Afghanistan following the Taliban takeover.
[October 14 2021]
A bomb ripped through a vehicle carrying a Taliban police chief in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing him and wounding 11 others, officials said.
The blast happened in Asadabad, the capital of Kunar province, targeting the Taliban police chief for Shigal district, said an official from the Islamist group.
“The police chief has died and eleven people have been wounded,” he told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A doctor in Kunar central hospital confirmed to AFP that it had received 11 wounded people, including four Taliban fighters and seven civilians. AFP
[October 9 2021]
Ahmad Massoud, son of the late Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, fled to Tajikistan shortly after the Taliban seized control of the Panjshir Valley on September 6, according to a senior U.S. intelligence official, a Pentagon consultant, and two former senior Afghan government officials. Massoud was joined a few days later by Amrullah Saleh, the former Afghan vice president and longtime intelligence chief, who left Afghanistan by helicopter, the senior U.S. official and two former Afghan officials said.
Retired General Petraeus told Zakaria: “What I see now, sadly, is the onset of what is going to be quite a brutal civil war.”
July 9
[October 8 2021]
A suicide bomb attack on a mosque in the Afghan city of Kunduz has killed at least 50 people, officials say, in the deadliest assault since US forces left. : ISIS-K, an Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility for the blast, which took place as people gathered for Friday noon prayers at the Gozar-e-Sayed Abad Mosque in the city of Kunduz, per AP.
Bodies were seen scattered inside the Said Abad mosque, used by the minority Shia Muslim community.
[October 3 2021]
[September 24 2021]
The prospect of a government in exile raises concerns that Afghanistan could again be consumed by civil war. The lack of a state or wealthy individual sponsor for armed insurrection, however, makes it unlikely that the opposition, if it does coalesce, could back its aspirations with military might, at least for the foreseeable future. U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Rep. Michael Waltz appear to be the only cheerleaders so far for the Massoud-Saleh team, and there is no indication the resistance has found a financial sponsor like former Rep. Charlie Wilson, who famously backed the mujahideen after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
[September 23 2021]
At least three people were killed by gunmen who attacked a checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan.
Two of the casualties were Taliban fighters. The latter added that the attack was carried out by unidentified gunmen in a rickshaw and targeted a checkpoint in Ghawchak district of Jalalabad.
The attack in Jalalabad city is the latest on Taliban targets in Nangarhar province, which for years was the main operating base of the Islamic State (IS) group’s Afghanistan chapter.
Police: 1 dead, 1 injured after shooting near Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx
[September 21 2021]
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), India’s top anti-smuggling agency, seized two containers at western Gujarat’s Mundra Port on September 15 after receiving intelligence that they contained narcotics, the official said. More than 2,988 kilogrammes [3.29 tons] of heroin was recovered in one of India’s biggest such hauls to date.
“This information war has been clearest in the case of Panjshir, in which accurate information has been almost impossible to receive. The Taliban’s claims of victory were, understandably, treated with suspicion,” Brooking observed. “At the same time, the Panjshir guerillas appear to have misrepresented their strength in a bid for Western support. The falsehoods of this anti-Taliban group were heavily amplified by actors outside the region who likely saw it as a way to undermine Taliban strength.”
[September 18 2021]
Three explosions rocked the eastern provincial capital Jalalabad on Saturday in attacks targeting Taliban vehicles.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State militants, headquartered in the area, are enemies of the Taliban.
[September 14 2021]
Afghan shopkeeper Abdul Sami who was reportedly killed by the Taliban
The man would not flee when the Taliban advanced, telling them: “I’m just a poor shop owner and have nothing to do with war.”
But he was arrested, accused of selling sim cards to resistance fighters. Days later his body was dumped near his home. Witnesses who saw his body said it showed signs of torture.
There have been at least 20 such deaths in Panjshir.. BBC
[September 7 2021]
A spokesman for Massoud’s National Resistance Front (NRF), Fahim Fetrat, saif that the Taliban had taken the valley’s towns and main thoroughfare, Saricha Road – but that the NRF was still resisting in the predominantly Tajik region’s mountains and valleys.. France24
[September 6 2021]
“National Resistance Front of Afghanistan – جبهه مقاومت ملی افغانستان
The claim of the aggressive enemy is incorrect to take over Panjshir. National Resistance Forces are present in the pre-created stations, and from last night to now the war continues in different points. The people of Afghanistan should be assured that the resistance will continue until the freedom and justice is achieved by God’s help.
Taliban’s claim of occupying Panjshir is false. The NRF forces are present in all strategic positions across the valley to continue the fight. We assure the people of Afghanistan that the struggle against the Taliban & their partners will continue until justice & freedom prevails.”
[September 5 2021]
“My military estimate is … that the conditions are likely to develop [into] a civil war,” Milley said in the interview with Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin from Germany’s Ramstein Air Base.
“I don’t know if the Taliban is going to able to consolidate power and establish governance,” he continued.
The leaders of this collaborative force are local warlord Ahmad Massoud and former Vice-President Amrullah Saleh. Both are ethnic Tajik but the force is multi-ethnic. The Taliban are predominantly Pashtuns.
[September 4 2021]
[September 2 2021]
a spokesman for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, a grouping of rebels, said it had full control of all passes and entrances and had driven back efforts to take Shotul district at the entrance to the valley.
“The enemy made multiple attempts to enter Shotul from Jabul-Saraj, and failed each time,” he said, referring to a town in the neighbouring Parwan province.
[September 1 2021]
The Taliban admitted on September 1 2021 that there were casualties on both sides of the conflict with Ahmad Massoud’s resistance movement in Panjshir province.
The Taliban “have been attacked by those who choose to resist in Panjshir,” said Inamullah Samangani, a member of the Taliban’s cultural committee, adding: “The attack was met with backlash from [Taliban fighters], which resulted in heavy causalities on both sides.”
“The Taliban cannot parade around Kabul saying that they have driven out the American enemy and then collaborate with Washington. The Pentagon itself has indicated that it gave information to the Taliban to counter IS-K. For its part, the Taliban has not blamed the US military for the recent drone strikes targeting IS-K jihadists.” FRANCE 24’s Wassim Nasr
[August 30 2021]
Besides Massoud, his fellow Tajik, Khalid Noor, the son of former Balkh Province governor Atta Mohammad Noor, Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum and several others sent similar signals. “Surrender is out of the question for us. The Taliban at this point are very, very arrogant because they just won militarily,” said Noor, one of the three Gen Next leaders from the Afghan ethnic minorities. The others are Massoud, the son of Tajik leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, and Batur Dostum, the son of Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum. Massoud’s forces in the Panjshir Valley have been bolstered by some Afghan Army commandos as well as remnants of fighters from the Dostum and Noor camps.Two American senators have said that Panjshir should be recognized as a secure zone and some of the leaders of the Resistance Front should be recognised by the US and others.
[August 28 2021]
Now the Taliban Is the State
Now, suddenly, it is. After 20 years of torpor, the political fault lines are currently shifting with unimaginable speed.
For several days, Taliban emissaries have been negotiating with Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the so-called “Lion of Panjshir” who first kept the Soviets out of the valley and then the Taliban until he was murdered in 2001. At the moment, it seems to be primarily the Taliban who don’t want open warfare, say former military officers familiar with the negotiations in the Panjshir Valley. But the positions, they say, are too far apart for there to be a realistic chance of an agreement.
Already, they say, a five-figure number of trained soldiers and militia fighters have arrived in the valley, including many former members of the special forces units, which once included around 25,000 soldiers. The officers say that more are arriving every day. “Hundreds of fighters” from the Taliban, they say, hardly represent a credible threat.
[July 19 2021]
Retired General Petraeus told Zakaria: “What I see now, sadly, is the onset of what is going to be quite a brutal civil war.”
[July 2 2021]
Ahmad Massoud, the son of slain Afghan commander Ahmed Shah Massoud expressed concern at the prospect of US troops leaving the country, warning that a rushed exit would lead to “civil war” in Afghanistan. A decentralised country modelled on Switzerland was even more relevant today than it was 20 years ago and the only way to finally bring peace to Afghanistan. The American embassy closed January 30 1989, the Soviet-backed Afghan government held out for a few years after the Soviet military withdrawal, thanks in large part to continued economic and military aid from Moscow. But the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 meant an end by April 1992.
Afghan rebel groups, however, fought one another, bringing about years of chaos that largely ended when the ultraconservative Islamists of the Taliban managed to take over much of the country. The United States recognized the Interim Authority in Afghanistan on December 22, 2001
Crescent Shift 