By Matin Mehrab
As clashes intensified between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front in Panjshir province in recent weeks, residents are accusing the Taliban of mass arrests, hostage-taking, torture, and the forced displacement of civilians from their villages.
After coming under attack by the National Resistance Front (NRF) on August 16, the Taliban took 50 men and children hostage from the Abdullah Khel village of the province’s Dara district. A local resident confirmed to Zan Times that the Taliban released the elderly men but kept more than 10 others, who were reportedly tortured. He adds that some of the hostages are being kept in a provincial prison while others were moved to Kabul. “The Taliban have transferred 10 of the hostages, who are mostly between ages of 20 and 35 years, to their intelligence headquarters in Kabul,” explained the resident, who spoke to Zan Times on the conditions of anonymity.
Mohammad, another resident of Panjshir province, told Zan Times that the Taliban regularly arrests people, including farmers and passers-by, without reason or even evidence that they are collaborating with the resistance forces. “All the people of Panjshir, especially the people who are in the war zones, are getting used to getting regularly arrested, tortured, and humiliated at the hands of the Taliban,” he explained. “Whenever they come under attack and when they have casualties, they start harassing the people.” Indeed, videos are circulating on social media that show groups of Taliban mistreating detained civilians.
Abubaker Sediqi, a Taliban spokesman for the province confirmed to the Afghan television network ToloNews that the Taliban are arresting individuals based on “suspicion.” He said, most of the arrestees have been released, but a few are still under investigation.
The NRF is led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of a renowned anti-Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah Massoud, who holded out in Panjshir against the Taliban when they were previously in power and who was killed two days before September 11, 2001, in an al-Qaeda suicide attack. The current NRF, sometimes called Resistance 2, includes remnants of the security forces of the government that fell in 2021. The NRF is calling for a multi-party Islamic Republic in which power is shared between political parties, ethnic groups, and regions. Many Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks and other minorities are deeply alienated from the Taliban, which is dominated by Pashtuns.
The Taliban took over Panjshir in September 2021 and controls its main population centres. Meanwhile, the NRF claims that its forces have dug into the province’s mountainous areas and are planning for prolonged guerilla resistance. Though the Taliban officially denies the military effectiveness or even the mere presence of the NRF – declaring that it is more active on Facebook than in reality – there are also reports that the Taliban has sent its best fighting forces to the largely Tajik areas where the NRF is active and have suffered casualties in their efforts to put down the insurgency. Recently, Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a senior Taliban military leader as well as a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, was appointed as a special commander in Panjshir. In 2010, Zakir led the fight against the U.S. mainly in south Afghanistan and is a member of Taliban’s top leadership council.
The Taliban have also appointed a new chief of police in the province.
Recently, the Taliban and NRF have clashed in southern areas of Panjshir and the Taliban gunmen have built defensive trenches near houses in the area, Mohammad told Zan Times. A combination of Taliban repression, forced house searches, violence, and arbitrary detentions have forced people to leave their homes. “The situation is such that no school or any other education centre is open, even for boys,” Mohammad says. There are reports that the villages of Abdullah Khel, Pujawa, Tambana and Paritab in Dara district, Hesarak village in Rokha district, and parts of Dara Arzoo village in Shotol district have been emptied of their residents. Mohammad says that some people have moved to neighbouring provinces, including Kabul, Baghlan, and Balkh.
Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.
