Taliban capture Panjshir

KABUL/TEHRAN: Taliban fighters broke out into prayers as their banner fluttered from a flagpole in Panjshir on Monday, after they announced the capture of the last pocket of resistance to their rule.

In videos circulating on pro-Taliban social media, fighters passed underneath portraits venerating their old enemy, the late Panjshir resistance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. Three weeks after seizing Kabul, the Taliban claimed to have conquered the rugged valley on Monday -- a historic blow to the province.

Under Massoud, the Panjshir fighters earned a legendary reputation for resistance, defending their mountain homes first from the Soviet military for a decade, then throughout a civil war, then the last Taliban regime from 1996-2001.

"With this victory, our country is completely taken out of the quagmire of war," the Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement. Soon after, in a photograph released by Taliban official Bilal Karimi, the same picture of Massoud is seen with his face ripped out. Taliban gunmen then stand posing in front of the ragged portrait.

The National Resistance Front (NRF) -- made up of anti-Taliban militia and former Afghan security forces -- have admitted to suffering heavy losses, and have called for a ceasefire. On Sunday, the NRF saidspokesman Fahim Dashty -- a well-known Afghan journalist -- and a top commander, General Abdul Wudod Zara, had been killed. But they also said their fighters were still present in "strategic positions" across the valley, and that they were continuing the struggle.

Previously, Panjshir´s fighters melted away in the face of advancing forces, hiding in canyons off the main valley, then launching guerilla raids.

But the Taliban have been emboldened by their sweeping victories across the rest of the country, where they seized an enormous arsenal of weapons and military kit that the now-departed US provided to the defeated Afghan army.

The NRF is led by Ahmad Massoud -- the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud -- as well as ex-officials who fled to the valley from the toppled government, including former vice-president Amrullah Saleh, a fierce Taliban critic. It is unclear where those senior Panjshir leaders are now based.

But Massoud, in an audio message Monday after the Taliban declarations of victory, called for Afghans to "rise up". The Panjshir -- mainly inhabited by ethnic Tajik people -- has immense symbolic value in Afghanistan as the area that has resisted occupation by invaders in the past. The Taliban warned Monday that anyone who "tries to start an insurgency" against them "will be hit hard."

But Massoud´s message in reply was one of fighting bravado. "For those who want to take up arms, we are with you," he said in a call for resistance. "For those who will resort to protest, we will stand next to you."

Meanwhile, Iran on Monday "strongly" condemned the Taliban´s military offensive against holdout fighters in Afghanistan´s Panjshir Valley, as they claimed it had taken control of the area.

"The news coming from Panjshir is truly worrying," Iran´s foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh told reporters. "The assault is strongly condemned." Iran had until now refrained from criticising the Taliban since they seized Kabul on August 15.

"On the question of Panjshir, I have insisted on the fact that it be resolved by dialogue in the presence of all the Afghan elders," Khatibzadeh said. "The Taliban must equally respect their obligations in terms of international law, and their commitments," he added, affirming that "Iran will work to put an end to all the suffering of the Afghan people in favour of establishing a representative government for all Afghans". Iran, which shares a 900 kilometre border with Afghanistan, did not recognise the Taliban during their 1996 to 2001 stint in power.