Panjshir leader Ahmad Shah Massoud and former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh have not fled Afghanistan and their forces are still battling the Taliban, the ousted Afghan government's ambassador to Tajikistan said at a press conference at Dushanbe on Wednesday.
Zahir Aghbar, the deposed government’s ambassador, said he was in regular contact with Saleh and that the resistance leaders were out of general communication for security reasons.
"Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh have not fled to Tajikistan. The news that Ahmad Massoud has left Panjshir is not true. He is inside Afghanistan," Aghbar said.
"I am in constant contact with Amrullah Saleh, who is currently in Panjshir and running the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's government," he claimed.
Ali Nazary, the head of foreign relations for the National Resistance Forces, also said in an interview with CNN that Massoud and Saleh were still in Afghanistan and fighting was going on with the Taliban. He said the location of the NRF leaders could not be disclosed because of security reasons.
Nazary said that 60% to 65% of the area of Panjshir comprising many subvalleys was still under the control of the NRF and its forces were continuing the fight against the Taliban.
He lashed out at Pakistan, for what he termed as “foreign interference” in Afghanistan, over the support that they had been providing the Taliban in the fighting in Panjshir.
He said it was quite obvious that Pakistan has played a role in helping the the Taliban as air power was used in the battle. The Taliban neither have pilots nor drones so this clearly exposes Pakistan, he added.
The Taliban said on Monday that the group has "completely captured" Panjshir, the last stronghold of the resistance forces, after days of fierce fighting in the country’s smallest province north of Kabul.
"With this victory, our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war," Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid had said in a statement.
Pictures on social media showed Taliban members standing in front of the gate of the Panjshir provincial governor's compound.
However, NRF had countered the claim, saying that its forces were well entrenched in strategic positions across the valley and fighting continues.
Although it did not deny the centre of Panjshir had fallen to the Taliban militants, the NRF said other areas in Panjshir remained under its control.
Panjshir is a strategically located valley with high mountainous terrain about 145 km north of Kabul. It is the only region among Afghanistan's 34 provinces that has been fighting back after the US troop withdrawal led to the Taliban overrunning Afghanistan in a 10-day blitzkrieg that saw the Afghanistan army melting without putting up a fight.
The Panjshir Valley has a history of valour as it remained unconquered by the Soviet forces in the 1980s and the Taliban in the late 1990s.
Also read: Taliban goes for the kill in Panjshir with ISI Chief in command
