Ahmed Shah Massoud: A Biography

Ahmed Shah Massoud (pronouncedma - sood) (c. September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was known as the "Lion of Panjshir". He was a man who prayed, hoped, dreamed, and fought for a free Afghanistan. He spent his entire adult life in service to his country and her people. Massoud was a man of peace forced into war. He was assassinated on September 9, 2001 by al-Qaeda suicide bombers who feared him more than any other man in the country.

Massoud was a fascinating dichotomy. This man who went to college to become an architect and create beautiful buildings ended up becoming so brilliant a military strategist that he is credited in large part for ending the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Nine times the Soviet Union tried to defeat Massoud in the Panjshir Valley, and nine times they were repelled.

Massoud's Early Years

How did Ahmed Shah Massoud become the Lion of Panjshir? Whatevents in his life caused this man to become one of the greatest military strategists and most charismatic leaders of the second half of the twentieth century?  Why was he considered so dangerous that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network felt the need to assassinate Massoud two days before the attack on the World Trade Center?

Ahmed Shah Massoud was born in Jangalak in the Panjshir Valley in 1953. He attended the university in Kabul where he studied engineering. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in 1979 changed the course of that country's history and the direction of Ahmed Shah Massoud's life. Gone were the days of prayer, study and youthful hope. Arrived were the days of resistence, war, and the mujahidin. (Literally meaning "strugglers," mujahidin is a term for Muslims fighting in a war or involved in any other struggle.) No one could have guessed in the early days that Massoud would become one of the most brilliant military strategists of his era.

When he joined the mujahidin around 1980, Ahmed Shah Massoud had no idea that the next twenty years - the rest of his life - would be involved in one war campaign after the other. When the Soviet Union finally left Afghanistan, factional fighting within the country lead to a civil war. The Taliban, financed and sponsored by Pakistan, went into Afghanistan with a promise of law and order. At first the war-weary citizens welcomed the Taliban and their promises of peace and control. It did not take long, however, for the enormity of the mistake to become known.

The Taliban inflicted on the people of Afghanistan a repressive version of extreme Islam. They denied the people all human rights, abolished music and song, closed schools and medical centers, and established the Ministry of Good and Evil to enforce their belief system on the entire country. Ahmed Shah Massoud and other mujahadinfound this radical form of Islam impossible to accept. They formed an alliance and swore to free their land from this latest invading force.

As time passed the Taliban, first supported by the Pakastani ISI, developed a close association with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Well funded and with military support from those organizations, the Taliban took control of more and more areas of Afghanistan.

Commander Massoud suffered several setbacks. His appeals for help from the West fell on deaf ears. Although Massoud represented the UN-recognized government of Afghanistan, few countries without a vested interest in controlling Afghan soil did anything to help the mujahidin in their struggle. They were finally forced into the northeast corner of the country, the Panjshir Valley, and maintained control of between five to ten percent of the country. The United States and other countries who had armed and supplied their former allies in the war against the Soviet Union began to consider whether or not they should recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

On September 9, 2001 al-Qaeda suicide bombers assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud. They had been posing as Moroccan documentary film makers. One man had a video camera filled with explosives. The other assassin tried to escape but was killed by Massoud's bodyguards. While the initial blast did not kill Massoud, he was severly injured in the head, chest, and legs.  Efforts were made to get him to a hospital in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, but he died en route.

Worried that the Taliban and al-Qaeda would believe the Northern Alliance was leaderless and therefore vulnerable to attack, word was sent around the world that Massoud had been injured but was expected to survive.

Two days later, on September 11, al-Qaeda attacked the United States with more suicide bombers. To many people the assassination of Massoud is directly linked to the attack upon America. One school of thought is that bin Laden wanted to further indebt the Taliban to him by killing the man they most feared. Others believe that Massoud posed a threat to al-Qaeda itself. He was a man around whom America's responsive attack would most easily be built. With the death of Massoud, the United States lost its most valuable and able Afghan ally.

Learn more about Massoud in From That Flame.
Order it now!