(23 Aug 2021) The Taliban are closing in on the Panjshir, a remote mountain region in northeastern Afghanistan, where the son of famed anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud is among those in command.
The Panjshir is the last province of Afghanistan that has not fallen to the Taliban, who took the country with stunning swiftness last week as U.S. forces were withdrawing.
Its inaccessible gorges have defeated many invaders over the ages, including during the rebellion against the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s.
Ahmad Shah Massoud was one of the most prominent resistance leaders who fought the Soviets and their allies in those years.
After the Soviets retreated in 1989 and the communist regime fell, Ahmad Shah become a defence minister in the newly formed government in 1992.
When the Taliban emerged as a dominant force in 1996, Ahmad Shah and his army of ethnic Tajiks proved to be the only ones capable of resisting and even defeating them.
While the rest of Afghanistan was gradually taken over by the Taliban and their allies, Al Qaeda, the Panjshir remained the bastion of Massoud and his troops.
Massoud was assassinated by Al Qaeda on 9 September 2011, but his legend has lived on.

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