Three Taliban sources said that on Friday, the Taliban has captured the last province of Afghanistan – Panjshir valley, north of Kabul. However, the resistance leader has denied the claim and said that they are still holding out.
One of the Taliban leaders told media agency Reuters said, “By the grace of Allah Almighty, we are in control of entire Afghanistan. The troublemakers have been defeated and Panjshir is now under our command.”
It was not immediately possible to confirm the reports regarding the control, if the news is true then the whole of Afghanistan would be under the Taliban’s control, which they failed to capture when they first ruled the country between 1996 and 2001.
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Former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, one of the opposition leaders, said that resistance has not given up.
“There is no doubt we are in a difficult situation. We are under invasion by the Taliban," the former vice president said on a video clip posted to Twitter by a BBC World journalist, adding, “We have held the ground, we have resisted.”
Many other resistance leaders also dismissed reports of the fall of Panjshir, where thousands of fighters from regional militias and remnants of the old government's forces had massed.
Resistance leader Ahmad Masooud also confirmed and said that Pakistan media is circulating fake news. He said, “News of Panjshir conquests is circulating on Pakistani media. This is a lie.”
Kabul was conquered by the Taliban on August 15 and the US ended the evacuation and two-decade-long fight on August 31 after US troops left Afghanistan.
Earlier, Taliban sources said the group's co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar would lead a new Afghan government, which would be announced soon.
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A Taliban source said, “All the top leaders have arrived in Kabul, where preparations are in final stages to announce the new government.”
The religious matters and governance would be lead by the Taliban's supreme religious leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, informed another source.
The source further said that the Taliban government would comprise 25 ministries, with a consultative council, or shura, of 12 Muslim scholars.