Afghanistan—What’s missing these days in the capital of Panjshir, the only Afghan province that resisted the Taliban after last month’s fall of Kabul, are the Panjshiris.
In the handful of stores that are open in Bazarak, ragtag Taliban fighters do all the shopping, buying candy, sodas and energy drinks. Dressed in the traditional clothes of their native southern and eastern Afghanistan, they lounge in the shade of mulberry trees by the river that runs through Panjshir’s narrow, mountainous valley.
Some pass the time by taking practice potshots at rocks across the water. Others take selfies by the two Black Hawk choppers and one MD 500 helicopter that had been flown here by the anti-Taliban resistance and now parked, disabled, inside Panjshir’s Marshal Fahim stadium.
As for Panjshir’s residents, most seem to be gone two weeks after Taliban forces captured the valley. Once popular waterfront restaurants lie abandoned, with the white flags of the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate fluttering off defaced billboards. The only visible human activity, besides Taliban convoys driving up and down the valley’s main road, are the remaining families packing their belongings into trucks and minibuses as they abandon Panjshir for the relative safety of Kabul.
“Almost nobody’s left here anymore," said Abdul Malik, a farmer, as he took out bundles from his mud brick home on Panjshir’s main road that was damaged when a Taliban armored carrier smashed into it earlier this month.
With its single, narrow entrance, the Panjshir valley was legendary for holding out during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the Taliban rule in the 1990s. Panjshiri commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, assassinated by al Qaeda in 2001, became a national hero to many Afghans, his portraits emblazoned on public buildings across the country.
Panjshiris played an outsize role in all Afghan governments established after the 2001 U.S. invasion, holding the vice president’s and the defense minister’s jobs in President Ashraf Ghani’s administration that was toppled last month. They also controlled a sizable chunk of the nation’s business world, igniting resentment among many other Afghans.
Panjshir briefly became the center of renewed resistance after Mr. Ghani escaped the country on Aug. 15 and the Taliban walked into Kabul unopposed. Vice President Amrullah Saleh declared himself Afghanistan’s acting president and said that Panjshir has become a “safe harbor" for opponents of Taliban rule. Ahmad Massoud, a son of the late Mr. Massoud, proclaimed himself leader of the new National Resistance Front. Hundreds of Afghan commandos from elsewhere in the country, as well as several combat helicopters, flocked to the valley.
The Taliban initially tried to negotiate an agreed takeover of Panjshir, but the talks quickly collapsed. After massing a large force at the entrance to the valley, the Taliban launched an offensive early this month, backed up by air power. They seized Bazarak on Sept. 6, and most of the valley, with the exception of some remote mountainous areas, since then. Messrs. Massoud and Saleh are believed to be in Tajikistan.
“No one can resist. Anyone who resists will be killed," said shopkeeper Faiz Mohammad. “People are starving and there is no money." He paused as two burly Taliban fighters stopped by to purchase a handful of lollipops.
Two burned-out vehicles, a remainder of the recent fighting, were outside his grocery. A black-white-and-green flag of Mr. Massoud’s movement, tattered and faded, still flew from an old flagpole. The half-peeled billboard of Ahmad Shah Massoud up the road displayed a quote from the late commander in English: “To compensate political mistake is difficult."
In Bazarak’s main market, Mir Agha has kept his wedding supplies store closed because nobody in Panjshir is holding weddings anymore.
“People are still scared, but there is no fighting around," he said as a Taliban fighter, a U.S.-made M16 rifle slung over the shoulder, watched him from afar. “The resistance is finished because people don’t have the strength to stand up to them anymore."
Ali Nazary, head of foreign relations for the National Resistance Front, said in a text message that the lack of current fighting doesn’t mean that the NRF is no longer present in Panjshir. “Fighting will start when the time is right," he said. “After weeks of calm they would face a crushing defeat and would be forced to withdraw."
Though most of the thousands of Taliban troops deployed in Panjshir are ethnic Pashtuns who often don’t speak the Dari language prevalent in this part of Afghanistan, the Taliban have tried to address local sensibilities by appointing native Panjshiris as the province’s new governor and new chief military commander.
“People of Panjshir come to the Islamic Emirate every day and say they support us and stand with us," the commander, Dad Mohammad, said in an interview in the provincial security office in Bazarak. As for the old Panjshiri establishment, he added, “people won’t support those particular figures because they’ve proven over the past 20 years that they only look after their own interests."
Mr. Mohammad, a former Islamic seminary student from northern Panjshir’s Parian district, conceded that some skirmishes in remote mountainous areas continue. The Taliban, he said, intend to keep the current large military presence in the province, but would seek to garrison these fighters at military bases in the valley, away from populated areas.
Azim Khan, a Taliban fighter from the Logar province south of Kabul who commands a unit guarding the bridge to Mr. Saleh’s home, said the Islamist movement had just detained three resistance members who were part of a plot to attack the compound, which is now used by senior Taliban members. The Taliban, he added, had found $6.2 million in cash and 18 100-gram gold bricks in and around the former vice president’s house.
After arriving in Panjshir, the Taliban had gathered the elders and told them not to fear reprisals, Mr. Khan added. Some 350 people, mostly women and children, returned from hide-outs in the mountains in his area after that, he added. “These poor people had escaped to the mountain barefoot. Their mouths were bleeding out of fear," Mr. Khan said. “They had been told that once the Taliban come, we will slit their throats."
While no credible reports of mass killings of civilians have emerged, the Taliban did kill dozens, and possibly hundreds, of Panjshiri fighters this month, particularly in the remote parts of the province, residents say. Those included Mr. Saleh’s brother Rohullah Azizi, they say. Many others have been shipped to detention centers outside the province.
Yet, even in plain sight of the Taliban, some civilians in Bazarak aren’t afraid to voice their disgust with the valley’s new masters.
“They are wild and violent people. They are brutal and kill people," a man in his 50s said within earshot of a couple of Taliban as he herded a cow and a calf through Bazarak’s main road. “I don’t know where the fighting still goes on, maybe in the upper mountains," he added. “But if I had a gun, I’d be up there on the top of the mountain myself."
