Kabul (AP) — A raid on a rebel hideout in northern Afghanistan killed eight fighters from a resistance movement including a commander, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The National Resistance Front vowed to fight the Taliban after they overran the country and seized power in August 2021. The NRF retreated to a mountainous and remote valley in Panjshir province after the takeover, with Panjshir the last province to hold out against the Taliban as they swept through Afghanistan. The National Resistance Front and another group, the Afghanistan Freedom Front, are comprised of former security personnel from the previous Western-backed government.
The Defense Ministry said in a tweet that the 313 Central Corps carried out an operation on a rebel hideout in Salang district, Parwan province, that killed eight people including a commander named Akmal Amiri.
Fighters recovered a rocket-propelled grenade, pickaxes, Kalashnikov and other rifles, and night vision binoculars during the raid in Parwan, which borders Panjshir and Kabul.
“The mujahideen of the Islamic emirate will not allow any group or person to harm the security and well-being of our people,” said the ministry.
Ali Maisam Nazary, head of foreign relations at the NRF, paid tribute to the slain commander and condemned the military operation.
“Every drop of blood of the martyrs of the Afghan people’s resistance will irrigate the rightful roots of the demand for freedom, dignity and justice and bring us closer to victory,” he said in a tweet.
