Fresh fighting in Panjshir holdout as Taliban postpone government formation
The Taliban are in the process of negotiating with other stakeholders to seek their support for their government
Fresh fighting was reported Saturday between the Taliban and resistance forces in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley even as the hardline Islamists postponed the formation of a new government for next week.
The Taliban appeared determined to snuff out the Panjshir Valley resistance before announcing who will lead the country in the aftermath of Monday’s US troop withdrawal, which was supposed to end two decades of war. But Panjshir, which held out for nearly a decade against the Soviet Union’s occupation and also the Taliban’s first rule from 1996-2001, is stubbornly holding out.
Fighters from the National Resistance Front (NRF) – made up of anti-Taliban militia and former Afghan security forces – are understood to have stockpiled a significant armoury in the valley, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Kabul and guarded by a narrow gorge.
In Panjshir, former vice-president Amrullah Saleh, holed out alongside Ahmad Massoud – the son of legendary anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud – admitted the perilous position of the NRF. “The situation is difficult, we have been under invasion,” Saleh said in a video message.
Taliban were expected to announce on Saturday the formation of the new government in Kabul, likely to be led by the outfits co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. It was the second time that the Taliban had delayed the formation of the new government in Kabul since they seized Kabul on August 15.
“The announcement about the new government and cabinet members will now be made next week,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said without giving further details.
Khalil Haqqani, a member of a committee constituted by the Taliban to negotiate talks with different groups over the formation of the government, said the Taliban’s bid to form a broad-based government in Kabul acceptable to the world, in fact, was causing the delay.
“The Taliban can form a government of their own but they are now focussing to have an administration in which all parties, groups and sections of the society have proper representation,” he said, acknowledging that “the Taliban alone will not be acceptable to the world”.
Former Afghan premier and head of Jamiat e Islami Afghanistan Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and brother of former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who have announced their support to the Taliban, will be given representation in the Taliban government, he said.
The Taliban are also in the process of negotiating with other stakeholders to seek their support for their government, he added.
Earlier, sources said that Baradar, the chairman of the Taliban’s Political Office in Doha, Qatar, was likely to be the head of the Taliban government in Kabul.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said that America and the international community expect the Taliban in Afghanistan to form an inclusive government with representations from different communities and fulfil its commitments like countering terrorism, respecting the rights of women and minorities and not engaging in reprisal.
