The Taliban launched an attack on Tuesday in the Shahr-e-Ghulghula area of Abshar district of Panjshir province, said Azmuddin Mirzayee, the head of Panjshir's provincial council.

The area attacked is near Nuristan province and the Taliban have taken hostages, said Mirzayee. Security forces from the center of Panjshir have been sent to the area, he said.

“The Taliban have taken 10 local people hostage and have transferred them to a mosque,” said Mohammad Sahrab Sahrabi, the district governor of Abshar.

He said that the security forces and the local people have sieged the mosque and are trying to arrest the Taliban.

The Taliban’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter said that Taliban fighters in the Abshar area of Panjshir damaged a fortification and detained "3 troopers," saying: "Clearance operation still ongoing."

Panjshir residents say that the Taliban possibly entered from Laghman and Nuristan provinces and first attacked a checkpoint in Qala Tari village.

Qala Tari, a village of around 30 families, is in eastern Abshar district, Panjshir, and borders Laghman and Nuristan.

Reports of the attack in Panjshir comes as Afghan politicians gather in Kabul to mark the 19th anniversary of the death of Afghanistan’s national hero, Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose home province was Panjshir. Officials at the event reiterated calls for the Taliban to agree on ending the conflict in the country.