Panjshir Valley

1. The Panjshir Valley , literally Valley of the Five Lion) is a valley in north-central Afghanistan, 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range.
2. It is divided by the Panjshir River.
3.  Panjshir valley is the epicentre of what is being called the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan or the Second Resistance. Ahmad Massoud, Amrullah Saleh, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi are the leaders of the  Resistance.
4.  The Valley remains the last area of Afghanistan standing strong against the Taliban
5.  Afghan ambassador to Tajikistan Zahir Aghbar has said that this province will serve as a stronghold for resistance against the Taliban by Amrullah Saleh, the first vice president of the erstwhile Afghan government who has claimed himself as the acting President of Afghanistan.
6. It was the site of the Panjshir offensives fought by the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviets against the mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1980 to 1985, when local commander Ahmad Shah Massoud successfully defended the valley from being taken
7. The Valley has the potential to become a major centre of emerald mining.
8. The Panjshir Valley has repeatedly played a decisive role in Afghanistan’s military history, as its geographical position almost completely closes it off from the rest of the country. The only access point to the region is through a narrow passage created by the Panjshir River, which can be easily defended militarily.
9. Famed for its natural defenses, the region tucked into the Hindu Kush mountains never fell to the Taliban during the civil war of the 1990s, nor was it conquered by the Soviets a decade earlier.
10. Most of the valley’s up to 150,000 inhabitants belong to the Tajik ethnic group, while the majority of the Taliban are Pashtuns.
11. The Panjshir Valley is Afghanistan’s last remaining holdout where anti-Taliban forces seem to be working on forming a guerrilla movement to take on the Islamic fundamentalist group.
12. This history of the valley’s independence has been closely linked to Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan’s most famed anti-Taliban fighter, who led the strongest resistance against the Islamic fundamentalist group from his stronghold in the valley until his assassination in 2001.

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