Taliban promises not to move to Panshir; Ahmad Massoud says he is ready to give his blood for his land

Naeem noted that Panjshir was not an acute problem and it had no military solution.  

“We want to resolve this issue through mutual understanding.  The only dream of our people was to end the war in our country,” the Taliban spokesman said.

He further noted that they would try to resolve the issue of the last uncontrolled province peacefully.   Naeem cited as an example Badakhshan and Balkh, where the change of power had been established without casualties.   

Panjshir is the only province in Afghanistan, where no one of districts fell to the Taliban and where the ant-Taliban forces, led by Ahmad Massoud, the younger son of the legendary Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, are concentrated.   

Ahmad Massoud reportedly announced the formation of the resistance forces in Panjshir.  His appeal was published in La Règle du Jeu, the magazine directed by the writer and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy.

Below is the text of the call reprinted by News-in-24:   

“CALL OF AUGUST 16, by Ahmad Massoud, commander-in-chief of the resistance forces in Panjshir

“Afghan people, Mujahedin, friends of freedom all over the world!  Tyranny triumphs in Afghanistan. Bondage takes hold in the noise and fury.  The hideous revenge will befall our martyred country.  Kabul is already moaning.  Our homeland is in shackles.  Is all lost?  Non.  I inherited from my father, the national hero and Commander Massoud, his fight for the freedom of the Afghans.  This fight is now mine, without return.  My comrades in arms and I will give our blood, along with all the free Afghans who refuse servitude and whom I call on to join me in our stronghold of Panjshir, which is the last free region of our dying country. I am speaking to you, Afghans of all regions and all tribes, and invite you to join us.”

At the same time, Ahmad Massoud noted in one of his latest interviews that he was ready for reconciliation with the Taliban, if they really wanted peace in the country. 

“There is no doubt that the peace is about leaving the past behind and building a united Afghanistan,” he said.  

Ahmad Massoud added that he was ready to sacrifice revenge for his father in order to keep his ideals and make his dream come true.  

Ahmad Massoud is an Afghan politician, the son of anti-Soviet military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.    

He was born on 10 July 1989 in Piyu in the province of Takhar in North-East Afghanistan.  After finishing his secondary school education in Iran, Massoud spent a year on a military course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.  In 2012, he commenced an undergraduate degree in War Studies at the King's College, London where he obtained his bachelor's degree in 2015. He obtained his master's degree in International Politics from the City, University of London in 2016.

Massoud returned to Afghanistan and was appointed CEO of the Massoud Foundation in 2016.  Since March 2019, Ahmad Massoud has officially entered politics.  On September 5, 2019, he was declared his father's successor at his mausoleum in the Panjshir Valley.

He has endorsed his father's idea of a Swiss model for internal power-relations in Afghanistan, saying that the decentralization of government and the de-concentration of power from Kabul would give a more efficient allocation of resources and authority to provinces in the country, thereby bringing prosperity and stability to the country as a whole.

Amid Taliban military advances in 2021, Massoud assembled a coalition of ethnic militias in northern Afghanistan called the Second Resistance or Panjshir resistance.  After the surrender of Kabul, he joined First Vice President Amrullah Saleh in rejecting Taliban rule.

Panjshir is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country.  The province is divided into seven districts and contains 512 villages.  As of 2021, the population of Panjshir province was about 173,000.  Bazarak serves as the provincial capital.  Tajiks form the majority of the population

Panjshir became an independent province from neighboring Parwan Province in 2004. It is surrounded by Baghlan and Takhar in the north, Badakhshan and Nuristan in the east, Laghman and Kapisa in the south, and Parwan in the west.