Taliban says hundreds of fighters heading to take Panjshir Valley

Anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Massoud calls for talks but says forces ready to fight if Taliban attempts to take stronghold.

The Taliban has said “hundreds” of its fighters were heading to the Panjshir Valley, one of the few parts of Afghanistan not yet controlled by the group. Since the Taliban overran Afghanistan, flickers of resistance have begun to emerge with some ex-government troops gathering in the Panjshir, north of Kabul, long known as an anti-Taliban bastion. “Hundreds of Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate are heading towards the state of Panjshir to control it, after local state officials refused to hand it over peacefully,” the group wrote on its Arabic Twitter account on Sunday.