Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the last Afghan postal post from anti-Taliban resistance, said on Sunday he hoped to hold peace talks with the Islamic movement that seized power in Kabul a week ago but his troops were ready to fight.
“We want to make the Taliban realize that the only way ahead is through negotiations,” he told Reuters by telephone from his fortress on Mount Panjshir Valley Northwest of Kabul, where he had gathered troops consisting of the remnants of regular and special army units Strength and local militia fighters.
“We don’t want a war to come out.” Massoud, son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, one of the main leaders of the Afghan anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s, said his supporters were ready to fight if the Taliban troops tried to attack the valley.
“They want to survive, they want to fight, they want to oppose the totalitarian regime.” But he said he did not organize the three-district seizures in the North Province of Baghlan who bordered Panjshir last week, which he said had been carried out by local militia groups that reacted to “brutality” in the area.
Massoud called for an inclusive and broad-based government in Kabul who represented all different Afghan ethnic groups and said “totalitarian regimes” should not be recognized by the international community.
The debris of the Soviet armored vehicle which was still dot the valley showed how difficult it was Panjshir to be defeated in the past.
But many outside observers questioned whether Massoud forces would be able to oppose the old without outside support.
He said his troops, said someone who was numbered more than 6,000, would need international support if it came a fight.
But he said they did not only come from Panjshir, a consecutive Persian speaking area with Pashtun which formed the core of the Taliban movement.
“There are many other people of many other provinces looking for protection in the Panjshir valley that stands with us and who does not want to accept other identities for Afghanistan,” he said.
Massoud’s anti-Taliban leader said negotiations only the way forward
