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What Defined Ahmad Shah Masud

10th September, 2016 · admin 7 Comments
Ahmad Shah Massoud

Ahmad Shah Massoud

By Frud Bezhan
September 9, 2016
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Resistance fighter and anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Masud was killed by Al-Qaeda assassins on September 9, 2001, ushering in a chain of events that would place Afghanistan at the center of the global war on terrorism.

Two days after his death, Al-Qaeda operatives would carry out the 9/11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Within a month, the United States military was leading a bombing campaign and invasion of Afghanistan with the intention of overthrowing the Taliban and capturing Al-Qaeda leader and 9/11 orchestrator Osama Bin Laden.

In life and as in death, the military strategist who had made his name as a commander of anti-Taliban forces would have a significant impact on life in Afghanistan. Here are some stories behind the man whose battlefield exploits earned him the moniker “The Lion of Panjshir.”

Northern Alliance Founder

He was a key leader of the Northern Alliance, a combination of Afghanistan-based forces that aligned in 1996 to counter the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul. After the U.S-led invasion in October, 2001, those forces would play a key role as a coalition partner until a new government could be formed.

Larger-Than-Life Figure

Numerous books, films, and articles have been written about Masud, and to this day he is revered as a national hero in Afghanistan. Posters of the 48-year-old — wearing his trademark woolen hat, the pakol — still dot the capital, Kabul, where monuments have been erected and streets named in his honor.

Camera Bomb

Masud was killed in Khwaja Bahauddin, a far-flung area in northeast Afghanistan near the Tajikistan border that served as his base of operations.

His assassins were identified as Abdessater Dahmane and Bouraoui el-Ouaer — two men of Tunisian descent who posed as journalists and traveled on Belgian passports. They killed Masud by setting off a camera bomb as they interviewed Masud in his office.

One of the attackers died immediately, while the second was shot dead after he attempted to escape. Masud was mortally wounded and died while he was being flown by helicopter to Tajikistan for treatment.

Assassins Spent Time In Molenbeek

The Al-Qaeda militants who killed him were believed to have transited through the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek, which has since become notorious for being home to several suspects linked to recent terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris.

In 2005, a court in Paris found four men guilty of offering logistical support to Masud’s killers. The four Islamic militants were sentenced to between two and seven years. Those convicted were captured by French authorities, who traced passports found on Masud’s killers to a Brussels-based militant cell run by Tarek Maaroufi, who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2003.

Revered In Neighboring Tajikistan

Masud, an ethnic Tajik, is widely revered in neighboring Tajikistan. In a sign of his enduring popularity, Masud has become a popular name for boys.

Masud received arms and financial backing from the Tajik government during the Taliban’s rule from 1996-2001. Some of his wounded fighters were taken to hospitals in Tajikistan. Masud’s own stronghold in northeast Afghanistan bordered Tajik territory and he often visited Tajikistan.

After his death, Masud’s family briefly moved to Dushanbe, where the family still owns a home. His family eventually moved to Iran.

Warned Of Attack On U.S. 

“If President Bush doesn’t help us, these terrorists will damage the U.S. and Europe very soon.”

Masud gave this warning in an address at the European Parliament in Brussels in April, 2001. He also told EU leaders that he had gathered evidence about an imminent terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda on the U.S. homeland.

His words proved prophetic. Months later, Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four passenger planes with the intention of flying them into U.S. targets. Two brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. A third hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth went down in a field in Pennsylvania. Altogether, the attacks claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people, and injured more than 6,000.

Cold Warrior

A 1992 editorial in the Wall Street Journal described Masud as the “Afghan who won the Cold War.”

Panjshir was a bastion of resistance to the 1979-89 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the last stronghold of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.

Masud’s Jamiat-e-Islami political party and military wing was the most successful Mujahedin group fighting against the invading Red Army. From his base in the Panjshir Valley, Masud’s men led a successful guerrilla fight against the Soviet forces, which launched several failed operations to claim control of the valley.

Panjshir still bears the scars of Masud’s fight against the Soviet Union and the Taliban. Hundreds of destroyed Soviet tanks are littered throughout the valley, as are weapons left by the Taliban in their failed attempts to conquer the area. Vast tunnel networks are carved into the mountains that the Mujahedin used to escape Soviet and Taliban bombardments, and dozens of mine-clearing operations continue on the rocky hilltops surrounding the picturesque valley.

French Connection

Masud spoke some French, having studied at the French-language Lycee Esteqlal school in Kabul, and was admired in France. In 2001, European Parliament President Nicole Fontaine invited Masud to address the parliament.

Masud was also friends with French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, who visited Masud in the Panjshir Valley in the 1990s. Masud was known to have said that French President Charles De Gaulle was one of his political heroes.

French audiences got to know Masud after the release of a documentary — The Valley Against An Empire — by French journalist Christophe de Ponfilly in 1981, just two years after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Reza Deghati, an Iranian-French photojournalist, traveled to Afghanistan and followed Masud from the 1980s until his death. His iconic photographs helped build the legend of Masud.

Posted in Al-Qaeda, Heroism, History, Taliban, US-Afghanistan Relations | Tags: Ahmad Shah Masood, Assassination, Jamiat-e-Islami, Panjshir |
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7 thoughts on “What Defined Ahmad Shah Masud”

  1. Ali Goali says:
    September 11, 2016 at 1:48 pm

    Again; I am asking you- why you don’t take my message. If you have any objection, please clarify it to me !

    THESE ARE CRITICAL ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED AND DRBATED.

  2. Ali Goali says:
    September 11, 2016 at 2:49 pm

    My Comments:

    “FERUD” IS CLEARLY DEFINING AHMAD SHAH MASSOOD OVERALL COMPLEX ACHIEVEMENTS AND HIS PERSONALITY IN HIS DISTORTED SIMPLE VIEWS UNDER THE CONFUSED SITUATIONS OF INVASIONS- HE IS JUST STRIVING EXTREMELY HARD TO EXONERATE THE ORIGINAL PERPETRATORS; THE SCHEMERS OF CIVAL WAR, RIGHT AFTER THE SOVIET DEPARTURE.

    THE FOREIGN “THUGS AND THUG-MARS”
    DERAILED THE WHOLE PROCESS Of REBUILDING MISSIONS FOR THE COUNTRY THAT HE AND OTHER HONORABLE ISLAMIC LEADERS OF AFGHANISTAN WERE ENVISIONING.

    “CRAZY” FERUD BEZHAN IS DISTORTING AND UNDERMINING THE TRUE PERSONALITY AND AIMS OF THIS ONE OF THE MAJOR FIGURE AGAINST THE SOVIET OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN.

    AHMAD SHAH MASSOOD WAS ALSO LATER FORCED INTO ENGAGING IN A FIERCELY-FOUGHT AND CONTESTED IMPOSED CIVAL WAR AND DIRTY SCHEMES WHICH WERE INITIATED AND MAINTAINED BY FOREIGNERS AND IGNITED BY DOASTUM’S SLAVE BOY SOLDIERS. THEY WERE ALL SECRETLY FINANCED BY THE WESTERN INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES.

  3. Ali Goali says:
    September 11, 2016 at 3:14 pm

    THIS MAN IS TOTALLY OUT OF LINE BY INJECTING POLITICALLY-MOTIVATED FRIVOLOUS INFORMATION.

    Look at his article; he is not talking about Ahmad Shah Massood- this is using the occasion to justify and focus one’s mind on savage intervention of the Anglo/US parasite in Afghanistan since September 11.

  4. Ali Goali says:
    September 11, 2016 at 3:17 pm

    THE FOREIGN “THUGS AND THUG-MARS”
    DERAILED THE WHOLE PROCESS Of REBUILDING MISSIONS FOR THE COUNTRY THAT HE AND OTHER HONORABLE ISLAMIC LEADERS OF AFGHANISTAN WERE ENVISIONING.

    “FERUD” IS CLEARLY DEFINING AHMAD SHAH MASSOOD OVERALL COMPLEX ACHIEVEMENTS AND HIS PERSONALITY IN HIS DISTORTED SIMPLE VIEWS UNDER THE CONFUSED SITUATIONS OF INVASIONS- HE IS JUST STRIVING EXTREMELY HARD TO EXONERATE THE ORIGINAL PERPETRATORS; THE SCHEMERS OF CIVAL WAR, RIGHT AFTER THE SOVIET DEPARTURE.

  5. Ali Goali says:
    September 11, 2016 at 3:38 pm

    The plot of the coward assassination has not been properly investigated yet.

  6. Baghlani says:
    October 6, 2018 at 12:02 pm

    ON
    *A
    “Sacred Mission”
    •••••••••••••••••••••••••••
    ===================
    GREAT
    AHMAD SHAH MASSOOD
    OF
    Afghanistan
    .
    **************************
    ***************************
    ************
    *****
    ***
    THE
    HIGH RIVER VALLEY :
    •••••••••••••••••••••
    *
    Strong sense of traditional Islamic piety
    always dominated most aspects of lives; like
    daily prayer calls- all through out the constellations of towns and villages that stretched below under the high peaked
    glaciers and lower rugged terrains
    along
    the steep mountain slopes and swift-running river flows of Punj-Shayr high valley ((roughly 75 miles long)).

    Interacting towns and villages are also dotted down bellow, along
    the Punj-Shayr river banks and streams- on its winding pathways, from
    “Gul-Bahahr” rapids and falls, all the way south
    to
    “Tug-Aub” hamlets,
    of
    “Kapisa” Province.
    ((next to eastern high-peaked flanks
    of
    the
    “Shamali’s big valley”)).

    *****
    ***
    *
    Those loosely-connected
    and
    traditional networks of isolated communities were always culturally well-defined and tacitly maintained
    under
    unofficially-strict Islamic norms and jurisdictions which gave the whole region a rare form
    of
    “cohesive unity”- unparalleled
    to
    most other parts
    of
    the country at large.
    *
    Those deeply-held ancient symbolic expressions and religious devotions
    ((early 70’s)) were always acting as a sort of
    counterbalance
    to
    whimsical
    shifting cultural moods and trends
    of
    “Kabul City”
    ((roughly 60 miles southeast from the entrance to the Punj-Shayr valley))
    *
    Kabul City was rapidly modernizing
    and
    slowly turning into a major international political hub right in the midst
    of
    Central
    and
    Southwest Asia.
    *
    A case in point, was the presence
    of
    more than thirty embassies that were representing many countries across the world.
    *
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    ~~~~~~~~~
    ~~~~~
    ~~~
    ~
    FOR
    A
    SACRED CAUSE :
    ••••••••••••••••••••
    *
    The intensification of tug of the cold-wars among the major international political power brokers and their collaborators,
    ((later 70’s and onwards)), began
    to
    gradually stir endemic regional instabilities that made the whole region, at times, greatly-vulnerable
    to
    extreme forms of social upheaval and foreign take overs.
    *
    *
    The Capital was getting increasingly alienated, on
    its social, economical and political platforms and affairs, from the rest
    of
    the strongly-established traditional rural lives, outside
    the mainstreams of the Capital city where foreigners, ((even hippies)), were freely mingling and actively
    pushing
    and
    selling
    their unique agendas
    to
    agents of the government and local businesses
    *
    The political mobilization and later tactical resistance and stands of the alliance under
    Ahmad Shah Massood’s charismatic ideological and military leadership against the Soviet invasion ((late December of 1979)) turned as a solid model,
    for
    most other parts of the country.
    *
    The mottos of his movement were closely resonated with the traditional cultural
    and
    religious aspirations
    of
    the majority
    of
    the people of Afghanistan
    *
    =================
    Social mobilization
    of
    the Muslim people of
    “Punj-Shayr”, ((a conservative and isolated river valley bastion)), was set
    to
    be used as a model
    for
    the rest of the country- it was the beginning
    of
    a “sacred cause” that soon transcended the
    geographic boundaries
    and
    ethnic lines.
    ==================
    ========•••••••••========•======••••••
    The wise leadership formulated something special by embracing
    deeply-rooted traditionally-practical schools of Islamic jurisprudence
    as
    an inspirational guide- it was all meant to address the cherished traditional religious norms, as well as, the cultural independence
    of
    those isolated folks that were increasingly coming
    under
    intense social pressures and harmful grips of foreign-inspired ideologies.
    ===================
    ===================
    *
    Ahmad Shah Massood was
    keenly aware
    of
    his unique position and the required urgency
    and
    devotion to help counter the imposing agendas which were mainly serving the exclusive geopolitical interests
    of
    the imposing powers.
    *
    ==========
    =====
    ===
    =
    ON
    A
    STRAIGHT PATH :
    ••••••••••••••••••••
    *
    Soon, after the Soviet departure from Afghanistan, ((1989)), all hopeful signs
    of
    a peaceful Afghanistan dashed; and detracted -unquestionably, due to executions
    of
    new rounds
    of well-calculated plots that were obviously meant to perpetuate
    anarchies; destabilize the local economy derail peaceful process among the regular Islamic political parties inside Afghanistan.
    *
    *
    The dilemmas of the presence
    of
    arrogantly-poised
    foreign military and diplomatic corps, on one hand, and the critically-importance
    of
    a peaceful resolution as a final aspiration
    of
    the regular folks, on the other hand, kept
    Ahmad Shah Massood
    and
    other honorable resistance leaders vigilant,
    as
    well as,
    suspiciously-puzzled- all due to greedy and savage natures of the foreign-conceived
    dirty schemes and their
    direct
    and/or
    indirect
    military interventions.
    *
    *****************************************
    **************************
    ***************
    **********
    *****
    Obviously, the main purpose
    of
    the foreign perpetrators was to maintain the powerful mass movements of Afghanistan at bay- by keeping the internal infernos
    aflame under the intense fires
    of
    imposed anarchies
    and
    disunity.

    *
    *
    In spite of extreme efforts,
    ((by
    Ahmad Shah Massood; his associates
    and
    other honorable Islamic leaders
    of
    Afghanistan)), for a peaceful resolution, the leaderships
    of
    the bullying international powers were
    always opting for distraction and making sure
    to
    deprive
    the regular folks
    of
    Afghanistan from restoration
    of
    civilized
    law and order
    *
    *****************************
    *****************************

  7. Samarqandi says:
    September 20, 2020 at 4:26 pm

    *AN
    IMPARTIAL
    INTERNATIONAL PEACE CONFERENCE
    ON
    AFGHANISTAN
    IS
    THE
    ONLY
    LOGICAL
    ROUTE !!!!!
    *

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