The Panjshir Valley

The Panjshir Valley (also spelled Panjsheer or Panjsher; Persian: دره پنجشير - Dara-ye Panjšēr; literally Valley of the Five Lions) is a valley in north-central Afghanistan, 150 km north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range. Located in the Panjshir Province it is divided by the Panjshir River. The valley is home to more than 300,000 people, including Afghanistan's largest concentration of ethnic Tajiks. As of April 2004, it became the heart of Panjshir Province
The name Panjshir, literally meaning "Five Lions", refers to five Wali (literally, protectors), highly spiritual brothers who were centered in the valley. Local legend has it that the five brothers built a dam for Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni (سلطان محمود غزنوی) in the early 11th century AD. The foundations serve today for a modern reservoir.

The Panjshir City

The Panjshir Valley has long been a center of resistance to Afghan central governments and outside powers seeking to rule the region. The region was propelled into the news by the eponymous Panjshir Valley Incident, a 1975 anti-Communist uprising led by Ahmad Shah Massoud. The uprising ultimately failed when local people, hearing news that the central government of Daoud Khan was sending in outside troops to put down the uprising, turned against Massoud. Massoud would be more successful using the valley as the base for his Northern Alliance during the 1979–1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan. The Panjsher Valley was one of the main centers of rebellion by Afghan Mujahideen against the government of Mohammad Najibullah and the Soviet forces. It was during this time that Massoud earned his nickname of the Lion of Panjsher. The Panjshir was the only section of Afghanistan which successfully resisted Soviet control. The Soviets launched nine offensives in the valley, all of which failed. Some sources estimate that close to 60% of all Soviet casualties of the Soviet-Afghan war occurred in the Panjshir Valley.The valley would become an important point of resistance against the Taliban when they rose to power in 1996 after the Mujahideen civil wars.