Ahmad Shah Massoud

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 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] He has been posthumously honored by a plaque in France in 2021,^[21] and in the same year was awarded with the highest honor of Tajikistan.^[22]

1975 rebellion in Panjshir

In 1973, former Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan was brought to power in a coup d'état backed by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, and the Republic of Afghanistan was established. These developments gave rise to an Islamist movement opposed to the increasing communist and Soviet influence over Afghanistan.^[28] During that time, while studying at Kabul University, Massoud became involved with the Muslim Youth (Sazman-i Jawanan-i Musulman), the student branch of the Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society), whose chairman then was the professor Burhanuddin Rabbani. Kabul University was a center for political debate and activism during that time.^[29]


Infuriated by the arrogance of his communist peers and Russian professors, a physical altercation between Massoud and his Russian professor led Massoud to walk out of the university, and shortly after, Kabul. Two days later, Massoud and a number of fellow militant students traveled to Pakistan where, goaded by another trainee of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, Massoud agreed to take part in a coup against Daoud with his forces rising up in the Panjshir and Hekmatyar's elsewhere.^[29] In July 1975, Massoud, with help from the Pakistani intelligence, led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of Daoud Khan.^[30] While the uprising in the Panjshir saw initial success, even taking the military garrison in Rokha, the promised support from Kabul never came and the rebellion was suppressed by Daoud Khan's forces sending Massoud back into Pakistan (after a day hiding in Jangalak) where he would attend a secret, paramilitary ISI training center in Cherat.^[24] Dissatisfied, Massoud left the center and returned to Peshawar where he committed himself to personal military studies. Massoud read Mao Tse-tung's writings on the Long March, of Che Guevara's career, the memoirs of General de Gualle, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, Sun Tzu's Art of War, and an unnamed handbook on counterterrorism by an American general which Massoud called "the most instructive of all".^[24][29]


After this failure, a "profound and long-lasting schism" within the Islamist movement began to emerge.^[28] The Islamic Society split between supporters of the more moderate forces around Massoud and Rabbani, who led the Jamiat-i Islami, and more radical Islamist elements surrounding Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who founded the Hezb-i Islami.^[29] The conflict reached such a point that Hekmatyar reportedly tried to kill Massoud, then 22 years old.^[27][28]