[ AFP ] Taliban battle for Panjshir as US warns of Afghanistan civil war
Taliban fighters advanced deep into the last holdout province of Panjshir Sunday, as the top US general warned Afghanistan faces a wider civil war that would offer fertile ground for a resurgence of terrorism.
Following their lightning-fast rout of Afghanistan’s army last month — and celebrations Monday when the last US troops flew out after 20 years of war — the Taliban are seeking to crush resistance forces defending the mountainous Panjshir Valley.
Few in Panjshir, a rugged valley north of Kabul that held out for nearly a decade against the Soviet Union’s occupation and also the Taliban’s first rule from 1996-2001, seem to trust their promises.
Taliban official Bilal Karimi on Sunday reported heavy clashes in Panjshir, and while resistance fighters insist they have the Islamists at bay, analysts warned they are struggling.
The Italian aid agency Emergency said Taliban forces had reached the Panjshir village of Anabah, where they run a surgical centre.
Former vice-president Amrullah Saleh, who is holed out in Panjshir alongside Ahmad Massoud — the son of legendary anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud — warned of a grim situation.
Saleh in a statement spoke of a “large-scale humanitarian crisis”, with thousands “displaced by the Taliban onslaught”.
DPA Notes (LLS): Taliban have successfully breached the Panjshir Valley badly mauling their enemies through concentrated firepower. Massoud and Salleh calling for ceasefire and peace talks ASAP.
The winning conditions for the Taliban at this point is to see Massoud and Saleh in their total power as prisoners to be humiliated in the eyes of their Western supporters, riddled with bullets and strung up for all of Afghanistan to bear witness to their failure, or to get confirmation that their two Tajik enemies have managed to flee to Tajikistan. For now, things look dire for the Anti Taliban forces as the organization begins to add more weight to their campaign to crush entirely the remnants of the old Kabul Regime.