At least nine Taliban forces were killed and six others injured in two attacks on security checkposts in western Kabul on Friday, November 24.
Afghanistan Freedom Front (AFF), an armed anti-Taliban group, claimed responsibility for both attacks in separate posts on X.
The first explosion, according to the AFF claims, happened at 5:40 P.M. local time in Kote-e-Sangi, a crowded commercial area, which killed four Taliban fighters and wounded three. Among the dead, the AFF said, was the Taliban unit head Mohammad Younus Tarabi.
The second attack occurred nearly three hours later at around 8:30 P.M. local time, according to another post by AFF on X. Gulkhana, where the second attack happened, is where the district police station is located, nearly two KM away from the first explosion.
The Taliban have not yet commented on either of the incidents.
AFF said the first attack was a “retaliation” against the Taliban’s arbitrary raids, targeting civilian residential homes and properties in the capital’s 5th district.
District 5 in Kabul is a major residential and commercial area that connects the capital to the Kabul-Kandahar highway. In previous years too, it has been considered a hiding and planning area for Taliban insurgents and ISIS affiliates in the previous government.
In the posts reporting the attacks, AFF also shared videos claiming them to be from the explosion scene and showing its fighters’ second attack on the Taliban. In the past also the group shared videotapes of their operations against the Taliban, making them a signature characteristic of its military actions.
Afghanistan Freedom Front, although have not released any public information about its leadership, is believed to be led by Mohammad Yasin Zia, who served in several high-ranking posts in the republican government, including as Chief of the Army Staff, the equivalent of the American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Mr. Zia, a Tajik from the northern Takhar province, had long been Afghanistan’s deputy chief of intelligence and the governor of his home province in the previous government. His AFF is reportedly populated by members of the former Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) who are perpetually targeted by the Taliban.
Given the ambiguity about its leadership, AFF has restrained from direct media engagement and appearances or overt political conversations with other anti-Taliban forces and the international community. As such, it was also absent from the recent conference in Moscow, Russia, that gathered several anti-Taliban figures including Ahmad Masoud.
It is not the first time AFF has claimed responsibility for attacks targeting the Taliban. Unlike the National Resistance Front (NRF) of Ahmad Masoud, whose insurgency is concentrated in rural areas, AFF has carried out attacks on the Taliban forces mainly in urban areas, particularly Kabul. On September 1, 2023, the group claimed to have killed at least two Taliban fighters in Kabul’s northern district of Shakardara. Before that, on March 10, 2023, an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) that AFF claimed to have planted killed at least three Taliban fighters who were patrolling a security check post in District 5, where the Friday attack happened.
Both groups have claimed previous attacks against the Taliban in Parwan, Baghlan, Kunduz, and Badakhshan provinces, key areas where anti-Taliban resistance commands a constituency. The NRF launched its insurgency in Panjshir, the birthplace of its leader after the Taliban came to power in August 2021. It soon, however, faced a massive Taliban response that is believed by human rights organizations to have committed war crimes and other atrocities in the process. Panjshir remains a heavily militarized zone to this date with more than 10,000 Taliban fighters estimated to be present in the narrow valley.
