Taliban forces and fighters loyal to local leader Ahmad Massoud fought in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley on Thursday, with each side saying it had inflicted heavy casualties in the last province resisting Taliban rule.
After the fall of Kabul on August 15, several thousand fighters from local militias and the remnants of army and special forces units have massed in Panjshir.
The leader of Afghanistan’s only region not to have fallen to the Taliban has said he would be willing to join a Taliban government, but only if the group proved itself to be inclusive and respect the rights of all Afghans.
Ahmad Massoud, 32, leads forces in the Panjshir Valley and said that war was on the cards if the group attempted an attack on his region.
In his first interview since the fall of Kabul last week, he told The National he had seen little evidence the group had changed over the past two decades.
Three former ISIS fighters share their stories about how they joined the organization and their stay in Syria to Asharq al-Awsat.
The security authorities of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria granted Asharq Al-Awsat permission to interview three former ISIS members, at the anti-terror headquarters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in al-Hassakeh.
The three were young men when they decided to join the organization in Syria. They got married and had children in combat. Today, after their surrender and detention, they know nothing about the fate of their wives and children.
The Afghan Experience
A.N. is a German young man, born in 1987. He said he came from a small family, an older brother of two siblings, who had all completed their university studies. His parents, who are still alive, found out about his orientation during his university studies, due to his continuous talk about the “Afghan experience” and the Taliban movement, which fought the U.S. army and the international coalition for years, saying: “I was impressed by the defeat of the Soviet Union, but their project was not as clear as ISIS, who took control of areas.”
The young German man tells that while following the news bulletin in the summer of 2012 and the explosion of the Syrian radio and television building, he heard about the al-Nusra Front, only to know later that it was the Syrian arm of ISIS.
At the end of 2012, he flew to Egypt, from which he completed the trip towards Turkey, and entered the city of Idleb, western Syria, under fake names, to undergo a combat course, and remained there for nearly a year. After the separation of al-Nusra – currently known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham – from ISIS, he joined the ranks of the latter and went to the city of Raqqa, which at that time was the organization’s administrative capital.
When asked about the organization’s expansionist wars during 2014 and 2015, he replied: “The biggest enemy was Bashar al-Assad, who was a war criminal, but the conditions of the war dictated a change in tactics and objectives at the time.”
After the battles intensified in Raqqa in the summer of 2017, and the geographic area under ISIS control receded, he went to the city of al-Mayadin in the eastern countryside of Deir-ez-Zor. In the spring of 2019, he surrendered to the International Coalition Forces.
A Tunisian Recruited By His Neighbor
Mustapha (H.A.), was born in 1989 in the city of Sfax in Tunisia but lived in Sousse, which overlooks the sea. He revealed that the famous 3-D game “Counter-Strike” changed the course of his life.
The game featured two teams – a terrorist group and a counter army – while players used to exchange roles.
He recounted that one day, as he was sitting before his computer, and saw pictures and clips showing the Syrian regime’s suppression of peaceful protesters, he said: “My neighbor was sitting next to me, and I asked him: What is happening there? He told me secretly that he intended to travel to rid the Syrians of the tyrant.”
Without the knowledge of his family, the young man traveled with his neighbor by land to Libya and from there by air to Turkey. Then, at the end of 2012, they entered the countryside of Lattakia, western Syria, where the al-Nusra Front had spread. He later went to Aleppo, where he joined ISIS.
Mustapha refused to comment on the killing scenes, but he spoke about his wife, saying: “I love my wife, and I have children with her…and this is a positive thing in my life, as for the rest, I am not content with it.”
He remained in the ranks of the organization until it was defeated in Baghouz. He tried to escape with his wife and children, but they were arrested on February 15, 2019.
A Syrian Man Joining “Work”
For Malik (37 years old), who comes from al-Bab in the countryside of Aleppo, the year 2014 was nothing but a date. That year, ISIS launched more than 100 suicide attacks on his hometown.
He recounted that after the militants of the organization tightened their control over the region, Malik was forced to join the ranks of ISIS to get work.
He worked first in the Court of Justice, then in the local police and combat. He said: “The marriage office offered me to marry a Syrian woman from Aleppo, and indeed I decided to marry her, and I did not marry a second woman.”
He said that he engaged in many battles and witnessed the organization’s losses from Aleppo to Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. He added: “I tried to escape when they were expelled from Manbij, and then I tried in Tabqa and Raqqa, but I did not succeed. I stayed until the battle of Baghouz, and surrendered to the coalition.”
Seven people in the town of Azaz were wounded after a car bomb attack, which the YPG is accused of, according to Zaman al-Wasl.
A car bomb wounded at least seven people in the Turkish-held northern town of Azaz on Monday, the rescue Civil Defence group said. The YPG-suspected attack has occurred in the town centre.
On Sunday at dawn, pro-Iranian factions targeted the besieged neighborhoods of the city of Daraa, southern Syria, with artillery and missile shells, causing massive damage to people’s houses, while Russia bombards Idleb in the North.
The factions targeted the neighborhoods of Daraa al-Balad, Tariq al-Sad, and the nearby IDP camps with more than 50 surface-to-surface missiles. The bombing left material damage and cut most of the roads, without any casualties reported, local sources told North Press.
Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s rise to power there, religious scholar Dr. Attia ‘Adlan, a former Egyptian MP and current member of the International Union Of Muslims Scholars (IUMS), which is supported by Qatar and Turkey, published an article on the IUMS website in which he defended the Taliban against its detractors. Forcefully rejecting the fears expressed by many in the Muslim world regarding the Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan, ‘Adlan claimed its members are “admirable people,” graduates of excellent shari’a schools who adhere to the tradition and avoid sin, and who are renowned for their jihad and steadfastness.
Recent attacks on Kabul’s international airport by the Islamic State’s Afghan affiliate raise multiple questions as well as the spectre of paradigm shifts in the drivers and expanding geography of political violence.
The attacks have called into question the Taliban’s ability to maintain security and keep a lid on the activities of multiple militant groups in Afghanistan. Long at war with the Islamic State (IS), the Taliban have promised to ensure that neither IS nor groups with which it maintains good relations will be allowed to use the Central Asian state for cross border attacks in the region.
The Afghan Taliban 2.0 Regime which zoomed into power in Kabul on August 15 2021 by American default of what I have earlier termed as a geopolitical suicide is perceptionaly a “China-Pakistan-Russia Franchise” facilitated into power in Kabul by this Trilateral and that Afghan Taliban captured power not on the strengths of astounding military victories over US Military Forces or supported by an upsurge of popular Afghan masses support.
After 20 years, the Taliban regained control of Kabul on August 15 and became Afghanistan’s top authority with the fleeing of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Following the capture of Kabul, the Taliban appear to be ostensibly adhering to international norms and seeking good relations with their neighbors. Afghanistan’s neighbors, such as China, India, Iran, Russia, and the Gulf states, are pursuing ties with the Taliban in their own self-interest. But of all Afghanistan’s neighbors, Qatar is the main winner following recent developments.
It is becoming increasingly obvious what kind of superpower China might be. Even as the international community watches the unfolding events in Afghanistan with concern, China has moved quickly to further its interests in the region. For Beijing, it is business as usual.