Clashes Erupt in Northern Afghanistan as Taliban Pursue Talks With Former Foes

The Taliban fought fatal battles with budding resistance forces in northern Afghanistan, as political negotiations on a broader govt moved forward in Kabul and access to the city’s U.S.-run airport remained complicated for 1000’s of Afghans trying to flee.

While most of Afghanistan’s military and protection forces collapsed, some of the Taliban’s most dedicated foes have retreated to the Panjshir valley northeast of Kabul, pledging to proceed the battle from the country’s only province not less than Taliban sway.

They incorporate the fallen Afghan republic’s protection minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who promises to be Afghanistan’s legit chief just after President Ashraf Ghani abandoned his responsibilities and fled the region Aug. 15 and Ahmad Massoud, a son of well-known Panjshiri commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Video clip posted on social media confirmed casualties and preventing concerning Taliban forces and anti-Taliban militias in the Andarab valley of the northern Baghlan province, adjoining Panjshir, and big convoys of Taliban reinforcements in U.S.-bought Ford Rangers and Humvees flying the Islamist movement’s white flag.

While the militias in Baghlan are allied with the forces in Panjshir, they acted independently in attacking the Taliban, said Ali Nazary, head of overseas relations for the new Nationwide Resistance Front that is based in Panjshir and contains some 1,000 Afghan military commandos who refused to surrender when the rest of the military melted away, as perfectly as some helicopters.