Afghanistan Crisis: Taliban Head For Panjshir Valley; US Says Situation at Kabul Airport Incredibly Volatile | Top Points

WASHINGTON: The Taliban on Sunday said that “hundreds” of its fighters were heading to the Panjshir Valley, one of the few parts of Afghanistan not yet controlled by the group. Since the Taliban overran Afghanistan, flickers of resistance have begun to emerge with some ex-government troops gathering in the Panjshir, north of Kabul, long known as an anti-Taliban bastion. The Taliban swept across Afghanistan this month, seizing control of almost all key towns and cities, including Kabul, in the backdrop of the withdrawal of the US forces.

However, Afghan leader Ahmad Massoud, son of one of the main leaders of Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s, retorted to Taliban’s threats saying that Panjshir valley will not be handed over to the terror group and resistance fighters will be ready to fight back if the extremist group tries to seize it. Massoud said he would not surrender areas under his control to the Taliban. “We confronted the Soviet Union, and we will be able to confront the Taliban,” Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, told Al Arabiya.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday called the situation at the overcrowded Kabul airport ‘incredibly volatile’ where many people have died as thousands of foreign nationals and Afghans try to flee the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. “Crowds have massed at the gates outside the airport. It’s an incredibly volatile situation, it’s an incredibly fluid situation. We’ve seen wrenching images of people hurt, even killed that hit you in the gut. And it’s very important to make sure to the best of our ability, because it’s such a volatile situation, that we do something about the crowding at the gates of the airport, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Blinken reportedly told Fox News in an interview. Here are top developments of the day on Afghanistan:

In the last 24 hours, about 8,000 people on about 60 flights have evacuated from Kabul airport. About 30,000 people on military flights and on charter flights that the US helped organise have got out of the airport since the evacuation effort began at the end of July. India on Sunday evacuated 392 people including two Afghan lawmakers in three flights as part of its mission to bring Indians and Afghan partners from Kabul in the backdrop of increasing Taliban hostility and deteriorating security situation in the city.

Separately, 146 Indian nationals, who were evacuated from Afghanistan to Doha, are being repatriated to India on Sunday night, the Indian embassy in Qatar said this evening. Hundreds of Taliban fighters on Sunday were seen in a video heading to the Panjshir Valley, one of the few parts of Afghanistan not yet controlled by the group.

Afghan leader Ahmad Massoud retorted that Panjshir valley will not be handed over to the Taliban and resistance fighters will be ready to fight back if the extremist group tries to seize it. The Taliban told Massoud he had four hours to give up Panjshir valley, north of Kabul, where the 32-year-old and Vice President of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh are holed up.

US President Joe Biden planned to provide a public update on Afghanistan later Sunday. He also was meeting with his national security team. Afghanistan also will be the chief topic of discussion when leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations, including Biden, meet virtually on Tuesday. The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and something we’re focused with every tool in our arsenal, Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan was quoted as saying.