A Taliban official said on Twitter on Sunday (September 5) that several parts of the Panchir region, the only one to resist the new power in Afghanistan, were now under the control of regime forces. For his part, Ali Maisam Nazary, spokesperson for the National Resistance Front (FNR), assured on Facebook that the resistance “Would never fail”.
This landlocked and difficult to access valley, located 80 kilometers north of Kabul, is the last major hotbed of armed resistance to the new rulers of Afghanistan. Communications are very difficult with the Panchir valley; or The world nor Agence France-Presse (AFP) were able to confirm from an independent source the real advance of the Taliban in the area.
A long-standing anti-Italiban stronghold, the Panchir, which legendary Commander Ahmed Chah Massoud helped make famous in the late 1990s, before being assassinated by Al-Qaida in 2001, is now home to the FNR. Led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of Commander Massoud, the FNR includes members of local militias as well as former members of the Afghan security forces who arrived in the valley when the rest of Afghanistan fell.
According to the Italian NGO Emergency, present in the area, the Taliban forces reached Anabah, a village about 25 kilometers inside the valley, 115 kilometers long on Friday evening. “Many people have fled from the villages in the area in recent days”, added the NGO in a press release, specifying having received “A small number of wounded at the Anabah surgical center”.
The likelihood of a reconstitution of Al-Qaida
Words that contrast with those, darker, made by former vice-president Amrullah Saleh, who, from Panchir, reported a “Large-scale humanitarian crisis”, with thousands displaced as a result of “Taliban assault”. In view of this chaotic situation, the Chief of Staff of the American Armies, General Mark Milley, estimated that “The conditions of a civil war” were “Likely to be reunited” in Afghanistan.
“I think there is at least a very high probability of a civil war” who could lead “To a reconstitution of Al-Qaida or a strengthening of ISIS [l’organisation Etat islamique] or other terrorist groups ”, he stressed in an interview with the American channel Fox News, aired on Saturday.
On the political level, the face of the new Taliban executive, initially expected to be unveiled on Friday, was still expected Sunday. Back in power twenty years after being driven out by a coalition led by the United States, the Taliban are scrutinized by the international community, which has warned that it would judge the Islamist movement by its actions.
The movement founded by Mullah Omar has promised, since the capture of Kabul on August 15, the establishment of a government “Inclusive” and is committed to respecting the rights of women, flouted during his first stint in power, between 1996 and 2001. Only his promises are struggling to convince: Saturday, for the second day in a row, dozens of women demonstrated in the Afghan capital to demand respect for their rights and their participation in the future government.
UN warning
On the humanitarian front, the situation remains critical in the country, but Qatar announced that it had sent fifteen tons of humanitarian aid from around the world to Afghanistan on Saturday and let it be known that the flights would continue. ” in the coming days “. The United Nations, which this week warned against a “Imminent humanitarian catastrophe”, for its part, will hold a meeting between member states on 13 September in order to increase humanitarian aid.
Almost three weeks after the Taliban took power, foreign ministers and diplomats are succeeding one another at a breakneck pace in Qatar, a key player in the crisis in Afghanistan, which is playing the role of neutral and influential mediator. Some are moving their Afghan embassy there, all praising his efforts to reopen the Kabul airport. The American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, is notably expected from Monday to Wednesday, in this country at the heart of the dialogue with the new Afghan power.
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