Vice President Amrullah Saleh Is Leading A Fightback Against Taliban In Afghanistan's Panjshir
On Sunday, when the fall of Kabul became inevitable, Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and even now it is still unclear where he is.
But even as the country has been taken over by the Taliban, Ghani deputy is refusing to concede defeat and is in fact fighting back.
Afghanistan's Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who claims he is the legitimate ruler of the country in the absence of the president is leading a fight back against the Taliban in Panjshir.
On Tuesday, days after the Taliban captured Afghanistan, a Northern Alliance flag was hoisted in Panjshir.
The Northern Alliance or United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan refers to the military front that was founded in 1996 to fight against the Taliban.
During the US invasion of Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance fought along with the NATO forces to oust the Taliban from power.
In Panjshir Valley the current fightback is led by Ahmad Massoud, son of late Afghan warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was popular as the 'Lion of Panjshir'.
Massoud was assassinated at the instigation of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in a suicide bombing on September 9, 2001.
Though the Northern Alliance had lost its significance in Afghan Politics, it had contributed to the rise of several political figures including former CEO of the country, Abdullah Abdullah and Amrullah Saleh.
Saleh, who was the former chief of the National Directorate of Security, was made the First Vice President of Afghanistan in 2019.
Like other Northern Alliance leaders, Saleh comes from Panjshir and belongs to the Tajik ethnic group.
Orphaned at a young age, Saleh first fought alongside guerilla commander Massoud in the 1990s.
He went on to serve in his government before being chased out of Kabul when the Taliban captured it in 1996.
The hardliners then tortured his sister in their bid to hunt him down, Saleh has said.
"My view of the Taliban changed forever because of what happened in 1996," Saleh wrote in a Time magazine editorial last year.
During his days at the helm of the Afghan Intelligence and as Vice President Saleh has maintained close ties with India and was a staunch critic of Pakistan for destabilizing his country.
As NDS chief Saleh is believed to have amassed a vast network of informants and spies inside the insurgency and across the border in Pakistan, where Pashto-speaking agents kept track on Taliban leaders.
The intelligence Saleh gathered provided what he alleged was proof the Pakistani military continued to back the Taliban.
Following the fall of Kabul, Saleh retreated to Panjshir - the country's last remaining holdout.
Even in 1996, Panjshir never fell to the Taliban and was a hideout for ethnic and religious minorities fleeing the extremists.?
"I won't disappoint millions who listened to me. I will never be under one ceiling with Taliban. NEVER," he wrote on Twitter.
On Wednesday, a Russian news agency reported that Saleh and his fighters have recaptured a strategic town Charikar in Parwan province from the Taliban.
