Taliban has captured Panjshir, the final resistance in Afghanistan
Despite multiple conflicting reports from both side’s supporters, it is becoming clearer that Panjshir have effectively fallen to the Taliban.
Taliban had taken the Panjshir governor house and raised the Taliban flag symbolically. The Taliban showed video of them capturing a few more of the Aghan National Air Force helicopters that had previously fled to the Panjshir.
Thousands of Taliban fighters charged into eight districts of Panjshir province overnight, according to witnesses from the area who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared for their safety. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that the province, which is north of the capital, was now held by their fighters.
We believe that the Panjshir resistance fighters are not fully vanquished and had retreated into the mountains to continue their fight. We believe that while they will likely make it difficult, if not impossible to govern the Panjshir region if the fighters can keep up with the guerrilla warfare – the fall of the provincial capital/governor house technically means that the region had fallen, the capacity to effectively communicate to and control the region has now lost to the Taliban.
However, a close aide of former vice president Amrullah Saleh, who is holding out in Panjshir, told India Today, “The Taliban claims are false. Resistance forces are up on the mountains and defending themselves. The Taliban are aided by Pakistani choppers for operations against us.”
On Sunday, the resistance forces suffered heavy casualties after Fahim Dashti, their spokesperson, was killed during a battle with the Taliban in Panjshir. General Sahib Abdul Wadood Zhor, nephew of Ahmad Shah Massoud and chief commander Saleh Mohammed, were also killed in the battle.
The Taliban’s military operations in Panjshir were allegedly aided by the Pakistan Air Force, whose drones dropped bombs on the valley, reports said.
On twitter, some reported that Pakistan had gotten involved and had sent in drones / helicopters to provide air support to the Taliban offensive in Panjshir. While at the same time, former Afghan Air Force that had flee to Tajikistan was rumoured to have flown back into Afghanistan to attack Taliban positions in Panjshir. None of these information can be confirmed from any official sources.
Given our educated guess, I think its a matter of misidentification. The helicopters are likely the captured helicopters now used by the Taliban, as shown in some of their propaganda videos in their advance to the Panjshir frontline a few days ago. Drones however, we aren’t so sure, given the lack of video/photo evidence, we suspect this is misinformation.
Other interesting things we had noted in our research is the presence of tanks in either the resistance side or the Taliban side.
As its a little hard to ascertain the situation in regards to the tanks; but its undoubtedly tanks from the soviet era and they can be visually identified as the T55 or the T62 tanks. But it is interesting to see thanks being fielded in this final fight.
We can safely say that, the tanks could at least act as an effective battering ram or moving shield to push an advance, even with the turret unusable; as both sides would unlikely have good anti-tank weapons (other than RPGs) that can take out a tank.
Given the overwhelming numbers and firepower of the Taliban, we do not believe the resistance will be able to take back Panjshir. The victory is now complete for the Taliban.