Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, wrote on Twitter: “Panjshir province, the last stronghold of the mercenary enemy, was completely conquered.”
Pictures on social media showed Taliban members standing in front of the gate of the Panjshir provincial governor’s compound. There has been no confirmation from Ahmad Massoud, leader of the group resisting the Taliban.
https://twitter.com/Zabehulah_M33/status/1434731614194606080?s=20
Earlier, Reuters reported that Massoud, head of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRFA), had welcomed proposals from religious scholars for a negotiated settlement to end the fighting.
“The NRF in principle agree to solve the current problems and put an immediate end to the fighting and continue negotiations,” Massoud said in a Facebook post.
“To reach a lasting peace, the NRF is ready to stop fighting on condition that Taliban also stop their attacks and military movements on Panjshir and Andarab,” he said, referring to a district in the neighboring province of Baghlan.
At the time, Taliban forces said they were fighting their way into the provincial capital of Panjshir after securing the surrounding districts.
The NRFA also confirmed that its main spokesman Fahim Dashti had been killed. Dashti had survived the suicide attack that killed Massoud’s father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, on September 9, 2001, just days before the September 11 attacks on the United States.
He had been one of the main sources of updates from the area as the Taliban pressed in on opposition forces, issuing a defiant series of statements on Twitter, vowing that resistance would continue.