One of Afghanistan’s most well-known resistance groups against the Taliban, the National Resistance Front (NRF), is urging Joe Biden not to ignore terror threats coming from the embattled South Asian nation, warning that doing so could result in another 9/11.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, the NRF’s head of foreign relations, Ali Maisam Nazary, called for immediate action.
“Our message to the Biden administration is to not make the same mistake the Clinton administration (made) when they ignored the threat of terrorism in the mid and late 1990s and led to 9/11. The White House has to act fast and adopt a proactive approach to counterterrorism by allowing democratic and anti-terrorist forces like the NRF to liberate Afghanistan,” he said.
The remarks came as the Taliban is involved in a low-intensity campaign against rebels in the northern part of Afghanistan.
The country’s fighting season generally begins in the spring and usually goes through October. Prior to the Taliban’s takeover, this would generally be the period when they would launch attacks against U.S. forces and the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
The present conflict is largely taking place around the north of the country and is led by the NRF in the country’s Panjshir Valley — a mountainous region north of Kabul (where the Taliban consolidated its control last September) that has become an epicenter of anti-Taliban resistance.
The NRF is led by Ahmad Massoud and is considered by many observers to be the most capable resistance unit combating the Taliban. Massoud has vowed to continue the fight even after the group lost its rear base in the Panjshir Valley. Massoud’s father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, was a leading Mujahedin rebel who fought against the Soviets in 1980s and was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives just two days before the 9/11 attacks.
The NRF is closely familiar with Afghanistan’s rugged terrain and seeks to use against the Taliban similar tactics that the Taliban itself used against U.S. forces.
Although its chances of overthrowing the Taliban are unlikely without external help, the NRF hopes to continue to make life difficult for Afghanistan’s ruling regime. Sibghattullah Ahmadi, a spokesperson for the NRF, said in a tweet earlier this month that the Taliban launched an attack at the Shaba base and lost eight fighters to NRF forces.
According to Ali Maisam Nazary, the NRF will ramp up its fight during the spring season.
“There has been an offensive by NRF in Panjshir, Baghlan, Takhar and Badakhshan provinces and even with reinforcements the Taliban faced causalities the NRF inflicted, including prominent commanders in the past 10 days and the fighting is still going on,” Nazary said to Fox News Digital.
He added, “This shows us their weaknesses, and their supposed strength from the leftover U.S. equipment was useless.”
Nazary also asserted that the Taliban are committing war crimes and attacked civilians to retake control over rebellious provinces.
While Taliban officials at first denied there was fighting, they were forced to recognize it when images of their dead began to spread on social media.
In addition to the NRF, resistance to the Taliban has come from lesser-known armed groups. Although these units have a common goal of dislodging the Taliban from power, they share little else and the lack of coordination diminishes their ability to mount a viable challenge to the regime.
Many analysts do not view NRL and other armed groups as posing a real threat to the Taliban in the absence of foreign intervention.
“For the NRF to pose a real strategic threat to the Taliban, they will need to gain stronger external support, for supplies of weapons, shelter and training. But neighboring states are still more worried about a destabilized Afghanistan than about assisting to overthrow the Taliban, so there is only moderate support for the NRF abroad,” noted Roger Baker, director at Stratfor Center for Applied Geopolitics at RANE.
Thus far, neither the White House nor Congress has shown a desire to fund the anti-Taliban resistance.
Fox News notes:
Observers warn that a significant U.S. investment in the NRF would likely destabilize Afghanistan further and could exacerbate the already catastrophic humanitarian crisis. While the Taliban are likely to remain in power, it’s clear their new government is struggling to pacify the entire country.
Afghanistan’s Islamic State affiliate, known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), also poses a threat to Afghanistan’s stability. Unlike most of the resistance groups that desire a free and democratic Afghanistan, ISIS-K is committed to an uncompromising goal of creating a transnational Islamic caliphate and regards the Taliban as apostates for negotiating with the United States.
In late April, ISIS-K took responsibility for a series of terror attacks in Mazar-i-Sharif and Kunduz that left at least 20 dead. Per a February United Nations report, ISIS-K’s membership has doubled from 2,200 to nearly 4,000.
