Inside the Taliban’s secret war in the Panjshir Valley

The Washington Post secured a rare visit to the mountains and villages where the fight is playing out, getting a glimpse of a conflict that the Taliban has gone to great lengths to conceal.

Taliban officials flatly deny there is any violence in the area, even though thousands of the group’s forces are visible across the valley. “Everything here is fine,” insisted Nasrullah Malikzada, the Taliban’s local information director in Panjshir. “There is no fighting at all.”

Yet residents say assaults on Taliban positions are a regular occurrence, and dozens of people have been killed, with some civilians imprisoned in sweeping arrests. Those residents spoke on the condition of anonymity or used only one name for fear of reprisals.

The clashes in Panjshir are unlikely to pose an imminent threat to the Taliban’s control of the province or the country, but the violent resistance here punctures key narratives propping up the movement’s claim to legitimacy: that its rule has brought peace to Afghanistan and that its fighters are capable of maintaining security.

When the Taliban swept into Kabul in summer 2021 and the Afghan military melted away, a small band of fighters in the Panjshir held out for weeks. The Taliban claimed to have taken full control of the valley in September, but spokesmen for the National Resistance Front say they never surrendered.

Panjshir has a long history of resistance: It was the one province Taliban fighters were never able to pacify after taking Kabul for the first time in 1996. The current anti-Taliban movement is led by Ahmad Massoud — the son of legendary resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by al-Qaeda two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States — and former vice president Amrullah Saleh. Both men fled Afghanistan in late 2021, but they continue to direct operations from exile and are believed to command thousands of fighters.

A commander of approximately 100 fighters in Panjshir said the opposition is mostly armed with weapons shipped into Afghanistan across its borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. But the munitions, including heavy weapons such as rocket launchers, are not enough.

“We are supported by several countries, but we need more,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Taliban leaders have sought to contain news from Panjshir by limiting access to the valley and issuing sweeping denials when confronted with reports of fighting.

“Of course no one knows what is happening here,” a 62-year-old shopkeeper named Gulzar told The Post on the recent visit to the valley. “No one is allowed to come here; I don’t even know how you got here,” he said, cautiously watching pickup trucks and armored vehicles packed with Taliban…