A prominent Taliban commander*, not Mawlawi Gulbuddin Hanafi, was killed in clashes in the Khesarak Valley, Panjshir Province.
Kabul, April 4 - Sangar, Farzam Kazemi. Earlier on social networks, it was widely reported that during the recent clashes in Panjshir, the commander of the Taliban Red Brigade “Mawlawi Gulbuddin Hanafi Badri” was killed.
A source in the Taliban Ministry of Defense told the Sangar website that this man was neither a Mawlawi, nor a Red Brigade commander, nor a member of the Lashkari Badri, but was an ordinary Tajik Taliban commander from the village of Pichak, Farashgan Valley, Davlatshah District, Laghman Province.
“He was not a Taliban and only joined the Taliban after the fall of Kabul. He died in a traffic accident on Hamal 11 (March 31) in the Surubi area of the Kabul - Lagman highway, ” he said.
But the source confirmed the killing of a very important Taliban commander during the fighting in the Puni Valley, Khesarak Valley, Roha district in Panjshir, saying that his name was not released, but his death caused great distress at the level of the Taliban military leadership.
“They say he was from Kandahar and one of the close commanders of the Taliban defense minister, Mullah Yakub. In his honor, the Taliban held a memorial service at the Ministry of Defense,” the source said.
According to other sources, Resistance Front fighters in the Malek Chashmai Kandy pass, Panjshir Valley, killed the Taliban commander, who arrived with his group of 300 people to pick up the bodies of the dead from the battlefield. However, the reliability of these reports cannot be verified by independent sources.
Fighting in Hesarak has been going on since Hamal 31 (April 2). Aminjan Hesarak, commander of the National Resistance Front, told the Sangar website on April 2 that on April 1, resistance fighters surrounded a group of 300 Taliban Red Squad fighters at the Front's base in the Puni Valley. The result is 50 killed and wounded.
According to the latest information, yesterday, April 3, after the defeat, the Kandahar Taliban, consisting of 20 people, retreated from the Puni valley to the Abdulla Khel valley with seven bodies.
Meanwhile, clashes and attacks against the Taliban were taking place in other parts of Panjshir and other provinces. The National Resistance Front reported that on the night of Hamal 13 (April 2), three Taliban were killed and another five wounded in a guerrilla attack on a Badri militant ranger on the Zukoi Marashtan bridge in Panjshir. The Ranger car was completely destroyed.
On April 3, another attack by National Resistance Front fighters was made on Mavlawi Rashad Yaftali, the Taliban intelligence chief in Badakhshan province. He was attacked on the Puli Kuhna Bridge, known as the Ustad Rabbani Bridge, and was severely wounded and three of his bodyguards were killed.
According to Sangar sources, Mavlavi Rashad Yaftali, a native of the village of Gonka, Upper Yaftal district, Badakhshan province. He joined the Taliban back in the 90s. In 1998, he was captured by the resistance forces of Ahmadshah Massoud but was later released by him. He is about 65 years old.
*The organization is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.
