KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Taliban’s intelligence agency has detained local singer and dambura player Sayed Ghafar Agha in Kabul after he posted a video mourning the death of senior National Resistance Front commander Hasib Panjshiri, local sources told KabulNow.
A relative said Agha was arrested at his home in the capital’s District 15 on Tuesday morning, shortly after the video circulated on social media. A Taliban source confirmed the detention to the BBC but did not provide details about the charges against him.
In the video, posted several days earlier, Agha expressed grief over the killing of Hasib Panjshiri, also known as Hasib Qowaye Markaz, who was killed by the Taliban last week. He was seen crying in the footage.
Agha left Afghanistan for Iran after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. He returned in recent months, according to relatives, and was required to pledge that he would stop singing and live as an ordinary citizen.
Panjshiri was killed last week in a Taliban ambush in the northern Salang area of Parwan province while traveling with other NRF fighters toward Baghlan, according to sources. He was among the NRF’s most prominent commanders operating inside Afghanistan. His body was later handed over to relatives, who faced restrictions on holding his funeral.
The National Resistance Front (NRF), led by Ahmad Massoud and operating mainly in Panjshir, Kabul and northern Afghanistan, has been among the main armed groups opposing Taliban rule since 2021 and has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks against Taliban forces.
Since regaining power, the Taliban have imposed strict controls on public expression, including a near-total ban on music and close monitoring of social media. Rights groups and local sources have repeatedly reported detentions of Afghans accused of criticizing the authorities or showing support for political and armed opponents.
