It was not possible, from competing reports from the two sides, to get a precise assessment of their respective military positions. Reports that the Panjshir Valley had fallen Friday night touched off bursts of celebratory Taliban gunfire in the capital, killing at least two. A senior official of a prominent Western aid agency in Kunduz reported a number of killings of Taliban members in the last week of August, apparently by ISIS-K members, and even the raising of an ISIS-K flag, later taken down. Pakistan, whose intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I., has provided funding and sanctuary to Taliban leadership for two decades, showed its hand Saturday. Both the Afghan and Pakistani news media reported that the head of the I.S.I., Lt. Gen. Faiz Hameed, flew into the Afghan capital for talks.

Source: International New York Times September 04, 2021 17:20 UTC