Anti-Taliban fighters have vowed to take on the Taliban regime and retake Afghanistan. The calls from the armed group comes as the Taliban retake the country after a 20-year war against US and NATO forces in the country.
The majority of the armed resistance are training in the Panjshir Valley, located north of Kabul.
In released photographs, fighters can be seen training with an array of weapons and preparing for combat with the Taliban regime, who themselves now have control of weapons that US and NATO forces left behind.
Known as the Northern Alliance, which is in effect a gathering of several different groups, they have vowed to defend the 170,000 people still living in the small enclave they control. Most of whom are ethnic Tajiks.
The group tweeted earlier this week:
"Earlier this morning, resistance forces got a first support from Tajikistan helicopters have imported enough equipment, guns, full-ammunitions & foods. The morale of the resistance is high. We are grateful to our neighbour for all the support they started since beginning."
Leading the Northern Alliance is Ahmad Massoud, a 32-year-old, who was trained at Britain's top military academy. His father was murdered when he was 12 by agents of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
He told Reuters news agency:
"They want to defend, they want to fight, they want to resist against any totalitarian regime. There are many other people from many other provinces who are seeking refuge in the Panjshir valley who are standing with us and who do not want to accept another identity for Afghanistan. We want to make the Taliban realise that the only way forward is through negotiation."
French journalist, Bernard-Henri Lévy, an expert who has met the resistance leader, said:
"[France] is the country in the world where his name resonates the most … and Massoud is, today, the only one who resists and holds on. What I think, and given the historic ties with the father, it is normal that France provides him with the most advanced help."
[h/t: Daily Mail]
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