Son of legendary Afghan commander ‘preparing to hand over’ last anti-Taliban stronghold

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But an adviser to Mr. Masoud, whose identity was not revealed by The Telegraph, said the 32-year-old was looking for a way to surrender his honor intact.

“Panjshir cannot fight the Taliban, the Taliban has crushing forces,” said the advisor. “This is not the 80s or the 80s, the Taliban fought more powerful fighters.”

Hundreds of Taliban fighters have been sent towards Panjshir, according to the Taliban’s media service.

The website broadcast footage of a convoy of captured Afghan government trucks flying the white Taliban flag as it moved along a highway.

“The enemy is surrounded in Panjshir,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Twitter.

‘peaceful solution’

At a gathering of clerics in Kabul on Monday, Mujahid said there had been no fighting in Panjshir so far and that the Taliban were seeking a “peaceful solution”.

Massoud’s father, Ahmed Shah Massoud, fought the Soviet invasion in the 1980s and then resisted the Taliban in the 1990s from Wadi Qala, before being killed in an al-Qaeda bombing two days before 9/11.

Given his father’s reputation, Massoud’s surrender would mark a major victory for the Taliban.

“The Taliban wants total loyalty, and it would be a great symbol to get public loyalty from him because of the identity of his father,” the advisor said.

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