Afghanistan: Armed resistance to the Taliban in the Pansir Valley

The organization of armed resistance to Taliban in the Pansir Valley around two Afghan dignitaries, former Vice President Amrullah Saleh and the son of the assassinated commander Massoud, may make noise, but the outcome remains uncertain, according to experts.

In a series of texts circulating in recent days, Ahmad Massoud called for resistance in Pansir and called for international support, in particular weapons and ammunition, from the United States.

Amrullah Saleh vowed not to surrender to the Taliban and withdrew to the Pansir Valley. The two men appeared together on social media, showing that they are laying the foundation stone of a resistance movement.

Virtual resistance

The Pansir Valley, northeast of Kabul, is not under Taliban control, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday. But this does not necessarily mean that conflicts are taking place.

“The resistance at the moment is verbal because the Taliban have not sought to invade Pansir,” said Jill Doronsoro, a professor of political science at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Afghanistan and author in 2021 of The Multinational Government of Afghanistan – Such a Predictable Defeat.

“On the contrary, they surround Pansir on all sides,” said Abdul Sajed, a political science professor at Lund University in Sweden.

The Italian non-governmental organization Emergency announced on Wednesday that the number of war wounded is increasing at its hospital in the Pansir Valley.

“There are no clashes in Pansir at the moment, but there may have been some clashes on the way to the valley, in the Samali plain,” an unnamed Frenchman told AFP he knew the area well and fought in Pansir in side of Commander Massoud in the late 1990s.

For Bill Roggio of the US think tank FDD, Pansir escapes Taliban control, “but the status of the neighboring Parwan province is unclear. “It seems that Saleh’s forces tried to expand their control there with Pansir as their base.”

“The Taliban have built their victory on lightning war and tradition. “In the end, they did it without much violence,” said Jill Doronsoro. “A symbolic, frontal, general attack on Pansir today would run counter to their intention to return to normalcy.”

Disharmony

One lives in the shadow of the legend that was his father, the so-called Lion of Pansir, but lacks special political weight, while the other was for years in the mechanisms of Afghan power and is politically burdened.

“The relationship between Ahmad Massoud and Amrullah Saleh is somewhat complicated. “From the beginning there is a disharmony between them”, says the professor of Paris-1.

“Ahmad Massoud has no official position in the regime, and he has no strong support in Afghanistan except Pansir.”

According to the Frenchman, a former fighter of the Northern Alliance, Massoud’s son lives in the “paternal fantasy”, in the legend of his father.

“He feels like a bearer of a heritage, he wears the sheepskin of the little lion. He says: “if someone has to join the resistance, I will do it”.

Amrullah Saleh “claims to be constitutionally the legitimate president of Afghanistan after the departure of Ashraf Ghani,” said a professor at Lund University.

Negotiation with the Taliban

But what are the goals of the resistance? Negotiation with the Taliban or real armed resistance?

“The interests of the people of Pansir are currently being defended in Kabul by former Prime Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who is negotiating with the Taliban, and Massoud’s uncles, who are negotiating in Pakistan,” said the French militant.

He considers it possible that “this resistance is a way of putting pressure on the Kabul negotiations to uphold the interests of the people of Pansir, and at some point Abdullah or his family will call Massoud and tell him: ‘Enough, you can stop, we have a good agreement “.

He said Saleh did not follow the same logic because he was a “personal enemy of the Taliban”.

Jill Doronsoro, however, does not rule out the possibility of negotiating with the new rulers of Afghanistan, “since he is talking about a peace process that should be more inclusive.”

Foreign weapons and props

At the military level, this leads nowhere, according to the Sorbonne professor. “The Taliban have no choice but to seal Pansir and they are done. They do not even have to invade reality. “

Massoud “has at his disposal young people, vehicles, helicopters. It has been preparing for months “, says the French fighter, but adds:” they have the means to pretend, to be closed in the valley, but nothing more “.

All that remains is to make known the positions of potential foreign supporters who could have an interest in an active resistance, either under the state of enthusiasm for the Massoud legend or because they oppose the establishment of a fanatical theocratic regime in the region.