RASC News Agency: Local sources in Panjshir report that Taliban intelligence forces have detained Najmuddin, the brother of Abdullah Abdullah’s former bodyguard, shortly after arresting the bodyguard himself. According to these sources, Najmuddin was apprehended on Saturday, January 18, in the village of Tankho in Panjshir’s Dara district. While the Taliban have not provided any justification for Najmuddin’s arrest, locals assert that the motive behind the widespread targeting of Panjshir’s youth lies in their Tajik ethnicity and Panjshiri identity. The Taliban’s long-standing ethnic and historical animosity toward the people of Panjshir has only deepened following the establishment of the National Resistance Front, led by Ahmad Massoud, son of Afghanistan’s national hero, in defiance of Taliban oppression.
On Friday, Taliban intelligence forces detained Mujib, Najmuddin’s brother and a former bodyguard of Abdullah Abdullah. Thus far, Taliban authorities in Panjshir have refrained from commenting on the arrests of the two brothers. Since retaking control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have systematically detained and imprisoned Tajik youth from Panjshir. Over the past three years, thousands of young Tajiks from the province have been killed, while more than 14,000 have been arrested under allegations of affiliation with the National Resistance Front. Analysts, however, argue that the Taliban have failed to provide any evidence to substantiate these claims.
Observers believe that these arrests are a manifestation of the Taliban’s entrenched ethnic and historical grievances against the Tajik community, particularly the people of Panjshir. In the Taliban’s ethnocentric and sectarian regime, merely being Panjshiri accounts for 50% of the so-called “crime” attributed to these defenseless youth. The remaining 50% consists of unproven allegations of collaboration with the National Resistance Front and opposition to the Taliban’s ethnically driven rule.
