Ahmad Shah Massoud

Not to be confused with his son Ahmad Massoud or his brothers Ahmad Zia Massoud and Ahmad Wali Massoud.

Hero of the Afghan Nation
Ahmad Shah Massoud
احمد شاه مسعود
Massoud as a Mujahideen, wearing his signature Pakol hat
Minister of Defense of Afghanistan
In office
April 28, 1992 – September 9, 2001
Acting from April 28, 1992 to June 28, 1992
In opposition to the Taliban from September 27, 1996
PresidentBurhanuddin Rabbani
Preceded byMohammad Aslam Watanjar
Succeeded byMohammed Fahim
Personal details
Born(1953-09-02)September 2, 1953[citation needed]
Bazarak, Kingdom of Afghanistan
DiedSeptember 9, 2001(2001-09-09) (aged 48)
Takhar Province, Afghanistan[a]
Manner of deathAssassination
Political partyJamiat-e Islami
SpouseSediqa Massoud
Children6, including Ahmad
AwardsNational Hero of Afghanistan
Order of Ismoili Somoni
Nickname"Lion of Panjshir" (Persian: شیر پنجشیر)
Military service
Branch/service Jamiat-e Islami / Shura-e Nazar[b]
Afghan Armed Forces
United Islamic Front
Years of service1975–2001
RankGeneral
CommandsMujahideen commander during the Soviet–Afghan War
Commander of the United Islamic Front
Battles/wars

Ahmad Shah Massoud (Dari: احمد شاه مسعود, Persian pronunciation: [ʔæhmæd ʃɒːh mæsʔuːd]; September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was an Afghan military leader and politician.[4] He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militia, and actively fought against the Taliban, from the time the regime rose to power in 1996,[5] and until his assassination in 2001.

Massoud came from an ethnic Tajik of Sunni Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley in Northern Afghanistan. He began studying engineering at Polytechnical University of Kabul in the 1970s, where he became involved with religious anti-communist movements around Burhanuddin Rabbani, a leading Islamist. He participated in a failed uprising against Mohammed Daoud Khan's government.[6] He later joined Rabbani's Jamiat-e Islami party. During the Soviet–Afghan War, his role as an insurgent leader of the Afghan mujahideen earned him the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" (شیر پنجشیر) among his followers. Supported by Britain's MI6[7] and to a lesser extent by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),[8] he successfully resisted the Soviets from taking the Panjshir Valley. In 1992, he signed the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement, in the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan.[9] He was appointed the Minister of Defense as well as the government's main military commander. His militia fought to defend Kabul against militias led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords who were bombing the city,[10] as well as later against the Taliban, who laid siege to the capital in January 1995 after the city had seen fierce fighting with at least 60,000 civilians killed.[11][12]

Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud, who rejected the Taliban's fundamentalist interpretation of Islam,[13] returned to armed opposition until he was forced to flee to Kulob, Tajikistan, strategically destroying the Salang Tunnel on his way north. He became the military and political leader of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan or Northern Alliance, which by 2000 controlled only between 5 and 10 percent of the country. In 2001 he visited Europe and urged European Parliament leaders to pressure Pakistan on its support for the Taliban. He also asked for humanitarian aid to combat the Afghan people's gruesome conditions under the Taliban.[14] On September 9, 2001, Massoud was injured in a suicide bombing by two al-Qaeda assassins, ordered personally by the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself;[15] he lost his life while en route to a hospital across the border in Tajikistan.[16] Two days later, the September 11 attacks occurred in the United States, which ultimately led to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invading Afghanistan and allying with Massoud's forces. The Northern Alliance eventually won the two-month-long war in December 2001, removing the Taliban from power.

Massoud has been described as one of the greatest guerrilla leaders of the 20th century and has been compared to Josip Broz Tito, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara.[17] Massoud was posthumously named "National Hero" by the order of President Hamid Karzai after the Taliban were ousted from power. The date of Massoud's death, September 9, was observed as a national holiday known as "Massoud Day" until the Taliban takeover in August 2021.[18] His followers call him Amer Sāhib-e Shahīd (آمر صاحب شهید), which translates to "(our) martyred commander".[19][20] A street in New Delhi was named after him in 2007.[21] He has been posthumously honored by a plaque in France in 2021,[22] and in the same year was awarded with the highest honor of Tajikistan.[23]

  1. ^ "India airlifts military hospital to Tajikistan to strengthen geo-strategic footprint in Central Asia". The Economic Times.
  2. ^ Branigin, William (October 5, 2001). "Afghan Rebels Rebound From Their Leader's Death". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 27, 2017. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  3. ^ "Martyrs Week, Massoud's Death Anniversary Commemorated". Tolo News. September 9, 2019. Two years later, in 1975, he led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of that time.
  4. ^ Antonio Giustozzi, Empires of Mud (London: St. Martin's Press, 2012). ISBN 9781849042253; and Marcela Grad, Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader (Webster MO: Webster University Press, 2009) ISBN 9780982161500. ISBN 9780982161500
  5. ^ Bearak, Barry (November 9, 1999). "Afghan 'Lion' Fights Taliban With Rifle and Fax Machine". The New York Times.
  6. ^ "Mohammed Daoud Khan". History in an Hour. July 18, 2012. Archived from the original on September 29, 2018. Retrieved December 25, 2014.
  7. ^ Weir, William (2008). Guerrilla Warfare Irregular Warfare in the Twentieth Century. Stackpole Books. pp. 209–10. ISBN 9781461751090.
  8. ^ Coll, Steve (2004). Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin Group. pp. 123–124, 151–152. ISBN 9781594200076. But the CIA did begin in late 1984 to secretly pass money and light supplies to Massoud without telling Pakistan. ... Practicing standard tradecraft, the Islamabad station organized its Afghan network so that no one CIA officer, not even Bearden, knew the real name of every agent in the system. Commanders on retainer were given cryptonyms for cabling purposes. Massoud was too well known to be hidden behind code names, but even so, knowledge of that liaison within the U.S. embassy was limited very tightly.
  9. ^ Clements, Frank (2003). "Civil War". Conflict in Afghanistan: A Historical Encyclopedia Roots of Modern Conflict. ABC-CLIO. p. 49. ISBN 9781851094028. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  10. ^ "A Decade Ago, Massoud's Killing Preceded Sept. 11". NPR.org.
  11. ^ "Mujahedin Victory Event Falls Flat". Danish Karokhel. April 5, 2003. Archived from the original on December 25, 2014.
  12. ^ Dorronsoro, Gilles (October 14, 2007). "Kabul at War (1992–1996): State, Ethnicity and Social Classes". Gilles Dorronsoro. doi:10.4000/samaj.212.
  13. ^ Marcela Grad. Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader (March 1, 2009 ed.). Webster University Press. p. 310.
    Also Peter Bergen (2011), The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda, p. 8, at Google Books. "Mahmoud [...] espoused a more moderate form of Islamism and an orientation to the West."
  14. ^ "Ahmad Shah Massoud". September 16, 2001. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022 – via www.telegraph.co.uk.
  15. ^ "Death of an Afghan icon: 20 years since the assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud". France24. September 9, 2021.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference timesofindia.indiatimes.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Soldiers of God by Robert D. Kaplan, 2001.
  18. ^ "Afghanistan Events". Lonely Planet. September 15, 2014. Archived from the original on September 7, 2008. Retrieved September 15, 2014.
  19. ^ قاريزاده, داود. "پنجشير: سه سال پس از مسعود".
  20. ^ The forgotten hero of Afghanistan Artefact Magazine
  21. ^ "2Security Advisory : 2Security Advisory". eoi.gov.in. Retrieved July 2, 2024.
  22. ^ Cite error: The named reference plaqueeuronews was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  23. ^ Cite error: The named reference tajorder was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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