As the Taliban continues to tighten its grip on Afghanistan, the desperate evacuation of foreign nationals and those locals who worked for western forces over the past two decades intensifies.

But meanwhile, a small province in the north east of the country remains defiant. The Panjshir Valley, where the local terrain provides strong natural protection against attack, held out against Soviet invasion during the 1980s, and in the civil war and the decades of Taliban insurgency that followed.

Now, led by Ahmad Massoud – the son of the “Lion of Panjshir”, Ahmad Shah Massoud – the National Resistance Front is digging in for a fight. Afghan scholar Kaweh Kerami examines the options open to both the resistance and the Taliban leaders.

We also report on new research that examines why symptoms of long COVID are less common in children than in adults, and consider why some ordinary people are persuaded to become spies.

Jonathan Este

Associate Editor, International Affairs Editor

Unconquered: the people of the Panjshir Valley have successfully fought off invaders since the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. EPA-EFE/Hedayatullah Amid

Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley: the last stronghold of resistance to Taliban rule

Kaweh Kerami, SOAS, University of London

One province is holding out against Taliban rule.

Halfpoint/Shutterstock

COVID: long-lasting symptoms rarer in children than in adults – new research

Robert Hughes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Emma Duncan, King's College London; Michael Absoud, King's College London; Sunil Bhopal, Newcastle University

Fewer than 2% of children with COVID-19 still had symptoms after eight weeks.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays British businessman Greville Wynne who gets caught up in espionage during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Liam Daniel

How ordinary people are convinced to become spies

Chris Smith, Coventry University

American intelligence has recognised there are four reasons why a ‘normal’ person might be convinced to spy.

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