"Resistance 2.0." - Battle for Panjshir begins - Taliban claims victory

[ghazi52]

He promised an "organized resistance" to Taliban rule. Now he wants U.S. help to lead that fight.

AUGUST 19, 2021
CBS/AFP

While the Taliban's dramatic takeover of Afghanistan was met with little resistance, clear signs of defiance were appearing on Thursday.

In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, the son of Afghanistan's most famed anti-Taliban fighter claimed to have the forces to mount an effective resistance, but he called on the United States to supply arms and ammunition to his militia.

"I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father's footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban," Ahmad Massoud said, adding that "America can still be a great arsenal of democracy" by supporting his fighters.

Ahmad Massoud is seen at his home in Panjshir Valley, Afghanistan, September 5, 2019.REZA/GETTY
In Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that a Taliban resistance was forming in Afghanistan led by ousted Frist Vice President Amrullah Saleh and Massoud.


"The Taliban doesn't control the whole territory of Afghanistan," Lavrov told reporters.

On the political front, the Taliban continued to edge toward establishing a government, meeting with senior Afghan figures from the past two decades.

Taliban negotiator Anas Haqqani met with Hamid Karzai, the first Western-backed leader of Afghanistan after the Taliban's ouster in 2001, and Abdullah Abdullah, who had led the government's peace council, the militant group said on Twitter.


Saleh and Massoud were prepared for the coming fight. On Tuesday, after President Ashraf Ghani fled abroad, Saleh made it clear that he was staying in Afghanistan, and he declared himself the "legitimate caretaker president" of the country.

When he was still part of the serving government in May, Saleh told CBS News' Charlie D'Agata that the U.S. was wrong to have entered into negotiations with the Taliban in the first place, saying the group could not be trusted. He indicated then that if the militants were "waiting for a moment of surrender from the Afghan people, it won't come."

Many of the country's security forces did walk away from their posts without a fight in the face of the Taliban's rapid return to power, but Saleh and Massoud appeared set to challenge the notion that the entire country would fold as easily.

Massoud and his followers have been preparing for a possible all-out civil war for months, even as they hoped the situation wouldn't get that bad.


"I'll fight for it, and I'm ready to give my life for it," he told D'Agata in May. His father gave his life for it: Ahmad Shah Massoud was a renowned guerrilla commander who led the resistance against the Taliban occupation in the 1990's.

The senior Massoud was assassinated just two days before September 11, 2001. The Taliban knew the U.S. would retaliate for the terror attacks, and the anti-Taliban commander would have been too dangerous an ally to allow the Americans.

Ahmad Shah Massoud, commander of the anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban Northern Alliance militia, is seen on the battlefield north of Kabul, Afghanistan, in an October 27, 1996 file photo.PATRICK ROBERT/SYGMA/GETTY

His son told CBS News in May that he and others were ready to take up arms in what some had already started calling "Resistance 2.0."

"Armed groups against international terrorism," he told D'Agata. "They are ready. If the situation goes towards a war, we will announce it, and we will be ready."

"It will be people ready to fight," he said. "It will be an organized resistance against the Taliban."

He promised an "organized resistance" to Taliban rule. Now he wants U.S. help to lead the fight.

In May, the son of an anti-Taliban hero vowed to lead an "organized resistance" against the militants if they took over. Now he wants U.S. help.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[Pakistani Fighter]

Kick him out of Pakistan

 

[ghazi52]

Biden Says There Was No Way To Exit Afghanistan 'Without Chaos Ensuing'
August 18, 2021

• By RFE/RL's

President Joe Biden said in his first interview since the Taliban seized Kabul that “chaos” was inevitable once the United States decided to leave Afghanistan after two decades of war.

Biden told ABC News on August 18 that he didn’t know how U.S. forces could have exited “without chaos ensuing,” as witnessed at Kabul airport in recent days.

Western nations are scrambling to get thousands of diplomats, civilians, and eligible Afghans out of the country after the Taliban seized control of the capital over the weekend following a blitz offensive that saw a string of cities fall to the fundamentalist group in quick succession.

Biden said the Taliban is cooperating in helping get Americans and allied countries’ citizens out of the country but "we're having some more difficulty" in evacuating Afghan citizens who helped the international mission and others considered at risk under Taliban rule.

He said U.S. forces could remain in Kabul beyond an August 31 deadline if necessary to evacuate American citizens.

Earlier, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said about 4,500 U.S. military personnel are at Kabul airport and there "have been no hostile interactions with the Taliban and our lines of communication with Taliban commanders remain open."

The Pentagon chief added that U.S. troops do not have the capability to help people reach Kabul airport to be evacuated because his forces are focused on securing the airfield.

A top U.S. diplomat said the United States expects the Taliban to allow Afghans who wish to leave Afghanistan to depart, amid reports the group is blocking access to the airport.

"We have seen reports that the Taliban, contrary to their public statements and their commitments to our government, are blocking Afghans who wish to leave the country from reaching the airport," Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told reporters.

U.S. officials are engaging directly with the Taliban "to make clear that we expect them to allow all American citizens, all third-country nationals, and all Afghans who wish to leave to do so safely and without harassment," she said.

U.S. officials on August 18 said they have evacuated 4,480 people since they took control of the airport over the weekend, including 2,000 people in the past 24 hours. Officials have said they hope to be able to evacuate up to 9,000 people a day.

Other nations, including European allies, are also evacuating people in coordination with the United States. About 5,000 diplomats, security staff, aid workers, and Afghans have been evacuated in the last 24 hours, a Western official told Reuters on August 18.

The quick collapse of the Western-backed government after Afghan security forces crumbled in the face of the Taliban advance has raised larger questions about the U.S.-led international mission in the country.

Despite unfolding mayhem, Biden defended his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, blaming the Afghan government and military for not defending cities and the capital.

"When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country; when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off… that’s what happened,” Biden said in the interview.

Earlier, speaking to reporters alongside Austin, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said there had been no intelligence to indicate that the Afghanistan security forces and government would collapse in a period of 11 days as the Taliban captured major cities.

Milley said intelligence had "clearly indicated, multiple scenarios were possible," including a Taliban takeover following a rapid collapse of Afghan security forces and the government, a civil war or a negotiated settlement.

"The timeframe of rapid collapse - that was widely estimated and ranged from weeks to months and even years following our departure," Milley said.

 

[El Sidd]

Kick him out of Pakistan

Let me tag some very active people these days for commentary on this.

@Taimoor Khan @Death Professor @Ahmet Pasha @Nasr @Itachi

 

[RIP Pak LAW]

His uncle is in Pakistan not him.

 

[ghazi52]

New COAS of Afghanistan with his principal staff members ready for Resistance - 2.

 

[Titanium100]

Here is my 2 cents.. This is nothing more than false outcries they won't be able to last days or maybe even hours.. His no Ahmed Shah Massound his not a tactician neither does he have supply lines as they are literally cut off but that was not the case with the Northern alliance they had the Uzbek and Tajik borders. Taliban can come in tomorrow and roll them over within days... This Taliban is not the old taiban nor is this North Aliiance the old north Alliance.. This Taliban doesn't even view them as a threat it has been thru hell and survived and the American card is misued.. If they refuse to join Taliban will clear them out within days..

Once IEA sends in Badri 313 special forces this ends and could even end within a day.. These Badri 313 special forces were responsible for the tactics and the blitzkrieg this is a whole new Taliban generation.. This new Generation is a whole new animal..

Conventionally don't vaste your time... It would resemble more like shouting down a bank-robbery

 

[Death Professor]

He is in Pakistan
Apparently this QuAD is military in nature. @Path-Finder

Who told you he is in Pakistan?
He is in Panjshir with Amrullah. There was a video of him and Amrullah boarding on a heli and after that, there was a picture of him and Amrullah, and the statements of Amrullah came afterward. Anyways Taliban have to deal with this peace spoiler. Finish him as fast as they can or otherwise this fitna has a possibility to snowball.

 

[El Sidd]

Who told you he is in Pakistan?
He is in Panjshir with Amrullah. There was a video of him and Amrullah boarding on a heli and after that, there was a picture of him and Amrullah, and the statements of Amrullah came afterward. Anyways Taliban have to deal with this peace spoiler. Finish him as fast as they can or otherwise this fitna has a possibility to snowball.

I think they will offer them favorable terms to surrender peacefully.

Who was Shahid Masoud mentioning in his broadcast for 3 days?

 

[Wood]

Nothing short of a US-Russian bipartisan support can sustain this resistance against Taliban. The Russians can control the supply logistics that Americans will have to pay for.

But at the moment, the Americans are too tired of Afghanistan and the last thing that Russians want to do is ally with America. The way I see it is, unless Taliban behaves like ISIS - this request will fall on deaf ears.

 

[Maula Jatt]

Nothing short of a US-Russian bipartisan support can sustain this resistance against Taliban. The Russians can control the supply logistics that Americans will have to pay for.

But at the moment, the Americans are too tired of Afghanistan and the last thing that Russians want to do is ally with America. The way I see it is, unless Taliban behaves like ISIS - this request will fall on deaf ears.

This, just don't do anything stupid, do these little charm offensives

All the nieghbors are willing to accept em, 40 years of war in a neighboring county is more than enough

They'll be willing to accept even Stalin if he comes to power as long as he can maintain stability

 

[Pakistan Space Agency]

I think the due maybe just looking for some position in the Taliban Government hence all the hue and cry.

 

[TNT]

Holding on to straws lolz. Even the first resistance against taliban failed. The taliban were about to wipe out this scum but the US invasion saved them. These filthy bachabaz communists have no support and taliban would soon finish them.

 

[CrazyZ]

Panshir can be cut off and ravaged with artillery, drones, helicopters or AC. It must be supported from Tajikistan, and so far the Russians don't seem to be backing any Afghan resistance.

Diplomatic efforts are also under way to bring the Panshiri into the new government.....in the end this is what Ahmed Shah Massoud wanted. Recent events have proven that the northerners can not rule Afghanistan without support from rural Pashtoons.

Its time for Afghanistan to focus on peace and prosperity. Zero sum logic pushed by the Neocon zionist, hindutva lackeys in the previous regime only led to disaster.

 

[EternalMortal]

This dude just has a massive ego that's being stroked even more by saleh. Being the son of a hero is his only accomplishment thus far so he wants to be a hero like his father was.