Heavy fighting erupted on Thursday between the Taliban and an anti-Taliban resistance group in the Panjshir Valley, the last significant holdout area in Afghanistan, according to local residents and resistance officials. The Panjshir, mountainous region located north of Kabul, has a long history of resisting the Taliban, the Soviet Union, and even the British Empire. The coalition is led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of a famed anti-Soviet resistance fighter who vowed to battle the Taliban after the group’s near-takeover of Afghanistan and its capital, Kabul, last month after U.S. military forces pulled out. Over the past week or so, the Taliban sent its forces to the valley and surrounded it. Taliban and resistance leaders—the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan—had said they were working on negotiations but those appear to have collapsed, leading to heavy fighting on Thursday. Local residents confirmed the fighting to Al Jazeera and other outlets, while Fahim Dashti, an official in …