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A30 world news
Diaranson 25 augustus 2021

Some Afghans vow to resist Taliban from mountain enclave

(AP) - In a mountain val- sistance, calling him a “social
ley north of Kabul, the last media person.”
remnants of Afghanistan’s
shattered security forces “If he was a real threat he
have vowed to resist the should have stayed the day
Taliban in a remote region Ghani fled and defended the
that has defied conquerors palace. He was the vice presi-
before. But any attempt to dent and soldiers were under
reenact that history could his order,” said Farhadi.
end in tragedy — or farce.
But even the specter of such a
Nestled in the towering Hin- standoff, he said, risks plung-
du Kush, the Panjshir Valley ing the country into another
has a single narrow entrance period violence and turmoil,
and is the last region not un- with dire consequences for
der Taliban control following ordinary Afghans.
their stunning blitz across Af-
ghanistan. Local fighters held The Associated Press con-
off the Soviets in the 1980s tacted several people close to
and the Taliban a decade later both Massoud and Saleh in
under the leadership of Ah- order to seek comment, but
mad Shah Massoud, a guer- was unable to reach them.
rilla fighter who attained Many Afghans with ties to
near-mythic status before he the ousted government have
was killed in a suicide bomb- fled the country or gone into
ing. Ahmad Shah Massoud, nick- the commander in a suicide British military academy at hiding.
named the “Lion of Panjshir,” bombing. Sandhurst and also earned a
His 32-year-old foreign-edu- was one of the main leaders master’s degree in interna- The ousted leaders holed
cated son, Ahmad Massoud, of the Afghan mujahedeen, His forces remained intact, tional politics from the City up in Panjshir may end up
and several top officials from self-styled holy warriors who however, and partnered with University of London. joining the negotiations that
the ousted Western-backed defeated the Soviets in 1989. the U.S. when it invaded Af- the Taliban are holding with
government have gathered in His Northern Alliance in- ghanistan weeks later, scat- He has little, if any, combat other former Afghan offi-
the valley. They include Vice cluded fellow Tajiks as well tering al-Qaida, which or- experience. Sandy Gall, a cials. The Taliban have said
President Amrullah Saleh, as fighters from other eth- chestrated the 9/11 attacks, veteran foreign correspon- they want an “inclusive, Is-
who claims to be the care- nic groups, in keeping with and driving the Taliban from dent who wrote “Afghan Na- lamic government” but will
taker leader after President his vision of an independent, power. Along with other for- poleon: The Life of Ahmad hold off on forming one until
Ashraf Ghani fled the coun- multi-ethnic Afghanistan un- mer warlords, they went on Shah Massoud,” described the U.S. completes its with-
try. der a moderate form of Is- to form the core of the gov- his son as “a very personable drawal.
lamic rule. ernment and security forces young man with political am-
They have vowed to resist that the U.S. and its allies bitions.” “We must use our weight
the Taliban and are calling for But as the country slid into would spend the next two with the international com-
Western aid to help roll them war in the early 1990s, he decades arming and training, Massoud says he has been munity to get guarantees
back. found himself battling rival at a cost of billions of dollars. joined by highly-trained Af- from the Taliban for an all-
warlords and eventually the ghan special forces and other encompassing government
“I write from the Panjshir Taliban, who seized power in Those forces, which from the soldiers “disgusted by the that includes women and
Valley today, ready to follow 1996. During their five-year beginning were rife with cor- surrender of their command- non-Taliban,” said Farhadi.
in my father’s footsteps, with rule his forces were confined ruption, collapsed in a matter ers,” but neither proved to
mujahideen fighters who are to Panjshir and other remote of days earlier this month, as be any match for the Taliban Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob,
prepared to once again take areas in northeastern Afghan- the Taliban captured most of elsewhere in the country. a senior Taliban official, said
on the Taliban,” Massoud istan. the country less than three their forces have surrounded
wrote in an op-ed for the weeks before the U.S. was set Torek Farhadi, an Afghan an- Panjshir.
Washington Post. “We have Two days before the Sept. to withdraw its last troops. alyst and former government
stores of ammunition and 11, 2001, attacks, al-Qaida adviser, said the group poses “We are doing our best to
arms that we have patiently militants disguised as Arab The younger Massoud, who little threat to the Taliban, solve the issue through nego-
collected since my father’s journalists who had come was just 12 when his father and he cast doubt on Saleh’s tiations, but if they don’t ac-
time, because we knew this to interview Massoud killed was killed, trained at the claims that he could lead a re- cept the talks, we are ready to
day might come.” fight,” he said.

But experts say a successful In an interview with the Al-
resistance is highly unlikely Arabiya news network over
— and could potentially ag- the weekend, Massoud said
gravate Afghanistan’s already he would not surrender ter-
considerable problems. ritory but could support a
broad-based government.
While the Panjshir Valley re-
mains as impregnable as ever, A resident of Panjshir reached
it’s unclear how long its resi- by phone said Massoud had
dents can hold out if the Tal- warned people that the Tal-
iban besiege the area or attack iban might attack and said
it using the U.S.-supplied ar- families could leave if they
maments they have seized in wished. Those who stayed
recent weeks. Western coun- would prefer a negotiated
tries, stunned by the collapse solution but are loyal to Mas-
of a costly, two-decade at- soud and prepared to fight if
tempt at remaking Afghani- necessary, the man said on
stan, are unlikely to invest in condition of anonymity be-
another proxy war. cause of security concerns.