Amid fierce fighting in Panjshir Valley with the Taliban, the resistance forces have called for ceasefire, after reports they suffered heavy losses at the weekend, news agency AFP reported. The National Resistance Front, comprising anti-Taliban militia, had proposed that the Taliban withdraw from Panjshir; in return, it will refrain from military action.
Their statement comes immediately after religious scholars in the country called for an end to the conflict. A gathering of scholars in Kabul on Sunday had asked both the Taliban and the Resistance Front to halt the fighting, calling it an “illegitimate war”.
The NRF said it welcomes most of the articles of the declaration by the Afghan Ulema. "The NRF is ready to immediately end the war to achieve lasting peace if the Taliban end their attacks and military operations in Panjshir and Andarab. The NRF is committed to resolving disputes with the Taliban peacefully under religious and moral principles and is confident that it can negotiate peacefully with the Taliban and the rest of the people and groups representing the Afghan people in various ways. The people of Afghanistan are overwhelmingly Muslim. The struggles and sacrifices of the people of Panjshir, Andarab, Parwan, Kapisa, and other provinces and regions of Afghanistan over the past forty years have been to establish a true Islamic system," according to the statement.
While the resistance fighters lost influential figures like Fahim Dashti overnight, Taliban spokesman Bilal Karimi had stated that their forces had made it into the provincial capital, Bazarak, and had captured large quantities of weapons and ammunition.
The NRF is helmed by former vice president Amrulla Saleh and Ahmad Massoud, son of veteran Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.
