An anti-Taliban armed resistance group claimed it had taken control of a strategic district in northern Afghanistan.

The National Resistance Front (NRF) announced late Monday that its forces had conquered the Shekay district of Badakshan province.

This was the first time an anti-Taliban armed group had claimed control of a district since the Taliban’s return to power last year.

With 620 square kilometres of area and a population of more than 31,000, the strategic district of Shekay is located on the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

The Taliban district governor was arrested, along with 10 other members of the Taliban, NRF spokesperson Sebghatullah Ahmadi said in a statement.

In a video published on social media, the captive Taliban district governor recounted how the NRF fighters ambushed him during a trip.

A tribal elder also told dpa that the NRF forces had a presence on the district’s outskirts.

Taliban authorities in Kabul rejected the NRF’s claim as baseless.

Muezuddin Ahmadi, a provincial Taliban spokesperson, told dpa on Tuesday that the district had not fallen.

But he confirmed that the district governor was taken captive and later freed.

The birthplace of the NRF is the Panjshir-Valley north of Kabul, which had always served as a stronghold of Taliban resistance.

The founder of the NRF is Ahmad Massud, son of Ahmad Shah Massud, a leading figure in fighting the Taliban during their first reign in the 1990s. 

(dpa/NAN)