A Pakistani soldier stands guard as stranded Afghan nationals arrive to return to Afghanistan at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border crossing point in Chaman on August 14, 2021, after the Taliban took control of the Afghan border town in a rapid offensive across the country. — AFP file photo Fresh fighting was reported Saturday between the Taliban and resistance forces in Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley, even as the hardline Islamists finalise a new government that will set the tone for their rule. Facing the challenge of morphing from insurgents to rulers, the Taliban appear determined to snuff out the Panjshir resistance before announcing who will lead the country in the aftermath of Monday’s US troop withdrawal, which was supposed to end two decades of war. But Panjshir, which held out for nearly a decade against the Soviet Union’s occupation and also the Taliban’s first rule from 1996-2001, is stubbornly holding out. Fighters from the so-called National Resistance Front — made up of anti-Taliban militia and former Afghan security forces — are understood to have stockpiled a significant armoury in the valley, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Kabul and guarded by a narrow gorge. Celebratory gunfire rang out in the capital Kabul overnight as rumours spread that the valley had fallen, but the Taliban made no official claim Saturday and a resident told AFP by phone that the reports were false.