The National Resistance Front (NRF) in a statement on Monday announced that they have repelled “one of the heaviest attacks by the Taliban on the front's strongholds in Yakhdan Dara area of Andarab district”.
The NRF stated that Mullah Yaqoob, the Taliban's Defense Minister, was leading the operations. However, independent sources are yet to confirm if Mullah Yaqoob had travelled to the district and led the Taliban forces’ operations in Baghlan.
NRF claimed that 17 fighters of the Omari and Badri special units of the Taliban had been killed in the front’s counter attacks.
Sibghatullah Ahmadi, the spokesperson of the NRF, wrote on his Twitter account, that these units have left Baghlan province for Kabul after their defeat.
The Taliban have not yet reacted to the NRF statement.
On Friday, local sources of Afghanistan International had confirmed that the Taliban had concentrated their forces in Baghlan to suppress the resistance forces.
Reports show that for the past three days, along with Andarab district, heavy fighting had been going on in different areas of Panjshir province too.
A new wave of civilian killings in Panjshir and Baghlan
The Taliban operations have been accompanied by a wave of pressure tactics by the group against civilians in Baghlan and Panjshir provinces.
Local sources reported that on Sunday, the Taliban killed a woman in Abshar district of Panjshir province. According to sources, 43-year-old Sharifa was shot while on her way to deliver food to her husband in Parangal village.
Taliban fighters have told locals in the district that they killed the woman on their suspicion of her collaborating with the NRF.
According to the sources, the husband of the dead woman had gone to the mountains "with the permission of the Taliban" to collect firewood, and his wife had left the house to deliver food to him.
In the meantime, local sources from Khost district of Baghlan province reported on Saturday, last week, that Ziaul Haq Raid, a former local employee of the Ministry of Finance in Pul Khumri district, was shot dead after three days of torture in a Taliban prison.
According to the sources, the young man's body was handed over to his family on July 9. Raid was imprisoned because of his family’s relationship with one of the commanders of the NRF and was killed after three days of torture.
Meanwhile, local sources told Afghanistan International that on Monday morning, the Taliban shot dead a civilian named Sayed Aman Osmani, in Sachi Bala village in Khost district of Baghlan province.
Sayed Aman was a civil servant of Pul-e-Khumri Municipality and was visiting his family during Eid-al- Adha holidays in the area.
Residents of Khost district said that Osmani's family lives in Sachi Bala village and the Taliban pulled him out of their tent and shot him dead. Osmani studied at the Faculty of Persian Language and Literature of Baghlan University.
