Taliban push deep into holdout Panjshir Valley

KABUL－Taliban fighters advanced deep into Afghanistan's holdout Panjshir Valley on Sunday, but resistance fighters said they were keeping the Islamic group at bay.

Both sides said they had inflicted heavy losses on each other.

A Taliban spokesman, Bilal Karimi, said the districts of Khinj and Unabah had been taken, giving Taliban forces control of four of the province's seven districts.

"The Mujahideen (Taliban fighters) are advancing toward the center (of the province)," he said on Twitter.

Ali Maisam Nazary, who is not in Panjshir but remains a spokesman for the resistance, said on Sunday that the resistance "will never fail".

But former vice-president Amrullah Saleh, who is holed out in Panjshir alongside Ahmad Massoud, the son of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, warned of a grim situation.

The Panjshir Valley, surrounded by jagged snow-capped peaks, offers a natural defensive advantage, with fighters melting away in the face of advancing forces, then launching ambushes firing from the high tops down into the valley.

Emergency, an Italian medical aid organization, said Taliban forces had pushed further into the Panjshir Valley on Friday night, reaching the village of Anabah, where the group has medical facilities.

"We have received a small number of wounded people at the Anabah Surgical Centre," Emergency said, adding that many people fled in recent days.

It was not immediately possible to get further independent confirmation of events in Panjshir, walled off by the mountains except for a narrow entrance.

A celebratory gunfire killed at least 17 people in Kabul on Friday and wounded more than 40, news agencies said, after Taliban sources said their fighters had seized control of Panjshir.

But leaders of those fighting the Taliban denied that the province had fallen.

At least 14 people were injured in celebratory firing in Nangarhar province east of the capital, said Gulzada Sangar, spokesman for an area hospital in the provincial capital, Jalalabad.

The gunfire drew a rebuke from the main Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid.

"Avoid shooting in the air and thank God instead," Mujahid said in a message on Twitter. "Bullets can harm civilians, so don't shoot unnecessarily."

Following the completion of the withdrawal of the United States from the country on Aug 31, veteran-led rescue groups say the US' estimate that no more than 200 US citizens were left in the country is too low and overlooks hundreds of other people they consider to be equally American: permanent legal residents with green cards.

Some groups say they continue to be contacted by US citizens in Afghanistan who did not register with the US embassy before it closed and by others not included in previous counts because they expressed misgivings about leaving loved ones behind.

"The fear is that nobody is looking for them," said Howard Shen, spokesman for the Cajon Valley Union School District in the San Diego area that is in contact with one such family whose members they cannot get out.

"They are thousands of miles away ... and we're leaving them behind," Shen said. "That's not right."

Stung by the US military's chaotic and deadly retreat, US President Biden has promised that evacuation efforts will continue for the US citizens who want to leave, most of whom he said are dual citizens. The Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has said that it extends to green card holders and Afghans who supported the US government during the 20-year war.

It is unclear how that will work without an active US military presence in the country and the Taliban-controlled Kabul airport, a major way out of the country, is now closed. But an undersecretary of state said last week that all US citizens and permanent residents who could not get evacuation flights or were otherwise stranded had been contacted and told to expect further details about routes out once those have been arranged.

Agencies Via Xinhua