Five years after the capture of Kabul, the mountains of Badakhshan are rising once again. For the first time since August 2021, the temporary loss of a strategic district and the advance of new, coordinated armed formations demonstrate that the fight for Afghanistan is far from over. A mosaic of former soldiers, local militias, and united fronts is cracking the narrative of Taliban invincibility, opening up unprecedented and critical scenarios for the country’s future. Badakhshan, a mountainous province bordering Tajikistan, China, and Pakistan, is historically a center of opposition to the Taliban regime, having already obstructed its rule in the 1990s under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance. In recent weeks, this area has been the scene of a sharp intensification of attacks.
On July 17, 2026, a new armed formation named Sepahiyan-e Mihan (Front of the Soldiers of the Fatherland) launched a surprise attack, capturing the headquarters of the Yaftali Sufla district. Roughly 25 fighters held the position for several hours before withdrawing, forcing the Taliban to admit the temporary loss of district control. A few days later, on July 23, the Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF), led by former army chief of staff Yasin Zia, launched targeted operations in the Zebak district, managing to capture several outposts and hold their positions despite counterattacks by Taliban forces. Simultaneously, the National Resistance Front (NRF), led by Ahmad Massoud, claimed an attack on an outpost in the Kuran wa Munjan district. For the first time in five years, the temporary loss of a district and the prolonged resistance of the insurgents prove that these operations are no longer isolated incidents, but tests of organized combat capability. Clashes in Zebak, in particular, have by no means subsided: the AFF claims to have killed 21 Taliban fighters and wounded 35 others in fighting that continued over the following weeks, while the Taliban acknowledge the initial clash but offer a different version of events. In mid-August, the Taliban army chief of staff, Fasihuddin Fitrat, traveled personally to the frontline in Zebak to assess the resilience of his forces—a sign of how critical the province has now become as a strategic priority for Kabul. A novel element, contrasting with the fragmentation that has characterized the Afghan resistance for nearly five years, is the emergence of signals—not yet conclusive, but noteworthy—of growing coordination among the various fronts. Analysts observe that recent operations suggest the formation of a more cohesive anti-Taliban bloc compared to the past, when armed activity remained mostly localized and claims were independent of one another. The National Mobilization Front (Jebhe-ye Basej-e Melli), a minor group active since 2023, publicly urged its fighters to cooperate more closely with the AFF. Further enriching this mosaic of armed actors is a local Tajik commander, Jumma Khan, who has launched independent operations in the province—providing additional proof of the proliferation of groups and factions in the area. The resurgence of guerrilla warfare does not arise from a vacuum; it is fueled by coercive policies implemented by the Taliban themselves in the north. Collective punishments, arbitrary arrests, and repressive security operations against ethnic minorities—particularly Tajiks and Uzbeks suspected of anti-Taliban sympathies—have exacerbated local resentment. Added to this is an economic factor often underestimated in regional analyses: the restrictions imposed by the Taliban on small-scale mining operations managed by locals, alongside the ban on poppy cultivation, have further impoverished a province that remains among the poorest in Afghanistan, fueling widespread discontent that extends far beyond the military dimension. Unsurprisingly, on August 1, Taliban forces opened fire on demonstrators taking to the streets in the Yaftal-e Payin district to protest against what they termed “oppression and injustice,” leaving at least three dead and seven wounded. The episode signals that local grievances are being expressed not only through arms, but also via civil protests met with harsh repression. Furthermore, internal frictions are not limited to civilians: the regime has faced clashes with its own non-Pashtun local commanders integrated into power structures following the collapse of the Republic. Disputes over control of local resources (such as the gold mines of Badakhshan) and aggressive disarmament policies imposed by the central leadership have sparked infighting and opened deep fractures within the Taliban movement. The climate of tension deteriorated further following the killing of National Resistance Front commander Haseeb Panjshiri on Thursday, August 19, during a clash in the Salang district while traveling toward northern Afghanistan. A collaborator, Rumal Panjshiri, lost his life alongside him. The incident sparked a wave of international and social media outrage: an online video showed Taliban fighters gathered around the commander’s lifeless body, with a militant pulling his hair. Prominent figures in Afghan politics and justice, including former Minister of Justice Fazl Ahmad Manawi and former Attorney General Mohammad Farid Hamidi, strongly condemned the act. Hamidi defined the desecration of the bodies of the fallen and prisoners of war as “the pinnacle of ignorance, the decline of morality, and a crime against humanity,” in clear violation of international law and Islamic values. Worsening the situation was the Taliban’s refusal to return the body to the family, which was handed over only three days after the killing following mediation attempts by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Abdullah Khanjani, head of the political office of the Resistance Front, denounced the episode as a grave violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and a potential war crime, demanding an immediate and independent investigation by UNAMA and the international community. In an interview with the journalistic outlet Amargi, General Yasin Zia, leader of the AFF and former chief of staff of the Afghan army, explained the motives driving the armed struggle. According to Zia, the resistance is not an end in itself, but an inevitable choice in the face of the total closure of political and democratic spaces: “When women are arrested for demanding the right to education, when the media is suppressed, when opponents are killed or imprisoned and there is no legal mechanism for political change and national development, armed resistance becomes a difficult but inevitable choice… to break the monopoly of force and create the conditions for a genuine political process.” While reiterating that war is not the ultimate goal, the AFF believes that the current Taliban system—based on the imposition of an emirate rather than popular sovereignty and citizenship rights—leaves no room for peaceful reforms. Despite tactical successes in Badakhshan and the rise of guerrilla actions carried out by small, highly mobile, and well-trained units (often composed of former NATO-trained security personnel), it still seems premature to consider the resistance an immediate threat to the central power. Opposition groups still struggle to recruit on a large scale, maintain stable supply lines, unite various fronts, or stably govern conquered territories. For their part, the Taliban retain significant advantages in terms of intelligence, personnel, transport, heavy weaponry, and the ability to rapidly mobilize massive reinforcements from their traditional strongholds. The resistance also suffers from two historical and structural limitations: deep internal fragmentation and a lack of external support. Unlike the 1990s, today the opposition operates in near-total international isolation, as no neighboring country or major power is willing to openly back a new civil war. Yet, the myth of Taliban invincibility has cracked. The rise of internal divisions, minority discontent, and the tenacity of the new armed fronts indicate that the regime’s control is far from as monolithic as they would have people believe; the horizon points not to a rapid reconquest of the country, but to an asymmetrical, complex, and potentially long-lasting challenge that will continue to grind down Taliban power. Beyond the challenge of guerrilla warfare, the regime is being eroded by the persistent threat of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), a sworn enemy of the Taliban that continues to strike with targeted attacks, exposing the government’s inability to guarantee total security. In this scenario, time plays against the Kabul regime: without a genuine political transition, without international investments, and with an exhausted population, the emirate is wearing down not only under the blows of the new resistance, but from the internal collapse of its own power system.
The hope is that, beyond the logic of weapons, reprisals, and power struggles, the Afghan people will return to center stage. Only through the recognition of popular sovereignty, the protection of the fundamental rights of every citizen—starting with women and minorities—and a genuine national reconciliation process can Afghanistan emerge from a tunnel of conflict that has lasted for decades.
