The Taliban claimed on Sunday (September 5th) that several parts of the Panchir were now under the control of regime forces.

Communications are very difficult with the Panchir Valley, where the last pocket of resistance to the Taliban is located, and the media and news agencies are unable to independently confirm the actual advance of the Taliban in the area.

According to the Italian NGO Emergency, present in Panchir, the Taliban forces reached Anabah, a village located about 25 km inside the valley, 115 km long, on the night of Friday to Saturday.

"Many people have fled villages in the area in recent days," added the NGO in a statement, specifying that they had received "a small number of wounded at the Anabah surgical center".

On the resistance side, former vice-president Amrullah Saleh has reported, from Panchir, of a "large-scale humanitarian crisis", with thousands of displaced persons following "the Taliban assault".

The spokesperson for the National Resistance Front (FNR), Ali Maisam Nazary, for his part, assured from the United States that the resistance "would never fail".

"The national and sacred resistance of the people of this country will never fail, and even if it takes years, the victory is ours!"

he wrote on Facebook

The resistance led by the son of Commander Massoud

Since August 30 and the departure of the last American troops from the country, the forces of the Islamist movement have launched a series of offensives against this landlocked and difficult to access valley, located 80 km north of Kabul.

A long-standing anti-Italiban stronghold, the area, which legendary Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud helped make famous in the late 1990s before being assassinated by Al-Qaeda in 2001, is now home to the National Resistance Front.

Led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of Commander Massoud, the FNR includes members of local militias as well as former members of the Afghan security forces who arrived in the valley when the rest of Afghanistan fell.

"The conditions for a civil war" soon "reunited"

Faced with this chaotic situation, the Chief of Staff of the US Army, General Mark Milley, estimated that "the conditions for a civil war" were "likely to be met" in Afghanistan.

"I think there is at least a very high probability of a civil war" which could lead "to a reconstitution of Al Qaeda or to a strengthening of the Islamic State group or other terrorist groups," a- he stressed.   

On the humanitarian front, even if the situation remains critical in Afghanistan, it is starting to clear up.

Qatar announced that it had sent 15 tons of humanitarian aid from around the world to Afghanistan on Saturday and indicated that the flights would continue "in the days to come".

The UN, which this week warned of an "imminent humanitarian catastrophe", for its part will hold a meeting between member states on September 13 to increase humanitarian aid to the country.

With AFP

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