...the Pashtun equivalent of men...in their areas.
"If they (Taliban) are ready for peace, we are also ready, otherwise we will fight as in the past," said Hamza Wahab, district governor for Hes-e-Awal Kohistan
...a backwoods district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa distinguished by being even more rustic than is the norm among the local Pashtuns....
in Kapisa province.
"We will send forces to 34 provinces of Afghanistan, we will go to Takhar, Mazar, Kandahar and Badakhshan," said Mohammad Iqbal Safai, MP.
"We want to warn the Taliban not to move toward this area. They will be killed, this area has been the graveyard of the Taliban and will remain so," said a member of the public uprising force in Kapisa.
Also in Samangan province the people have taken up arms to fight the Taliban.
"They attacked several districts and faced shameful defeats," said Samangan governor Daud Kalakani.
The head of the National Directorate of Security
...the Afghan national intel agency...
(NDS) in Samangan told residents to defend their areas and to show no mercy with the Taliban, specifically to not let them "remain alive."
"It is officially an order, we do not want the Taliban to remain alive, no one should bring them back alive, we don’t want guests, kill them," said Sayed Amir Shah Sadat, the head of the NDS in Samangan.
"One of the key reasons that the public uprising forces are taking shape is that the Taliban treated the people badly in the past," said Mohammad Ismail Khan, a former mujahideen commander.
After dozens of districts fell to the Taliban in the past two months, tribal elders and influential local figures have armed hundreds of their subordinates to deploy them to the front lines of the war.