Taliban Claim Victory over Opposition Forces in Panjshir
“With this victory, our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war,” chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Monday.
Mujahid, tweeted that Panjshir province was now completely under the group’s control, warning, “Anyone who tries to start an insurgency will be hit hard. We will not allow another.
“We assure the people of Panjshir that there would be no discriminatory acts against them,” he added.
Media cited social media postings purportedly showing Taliban militants standing at the gates of the provincial governor's compound in Panjshir.
The Taliban’s deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar has said that the group is in the process of forming an inclusive government in Afghanistan.
The anti-Taliban National Resistance Front (NRF), pledged to carry on fighting in Panjshir Valley, saying it is present in “strategic positions” and that “the struggle against the Taliban… will continue”.
The whereabouts of resistance leader Ahmed Massoud and Amrullah Saleh, the former vice president who had joined the resistance after the fall of Kabul, were not immediately known.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has flown to Qatar to discuss the chaotic aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
