The Assassination of Massoud

"... bin Laden was not the real hero of the Afghan war; Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir and the commander of the Northern Alliance, was. "By all accounts," writes Rodenbeck, "Massoud was the most brilliant and charismatic of Afghan guerrilla leaders. [A]s far back as the late 1980s, bin Laden expressed resentment and mistrust of Massoud, perhaps because he was a pure Afghan nationalist with little liking for Arab interlocutors and little time for al-Qaida's romantic notions of forging a puritan pan-Islamic state."
From Peter Bergen's well-researched account, "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda's Leader," we glean that bin Laden was in fact considered reckless, if courageous, in battle. He and his "brigade of Arab recruits" "had no meaningful impact on the conduct of the war," other than to assassinate the man who won the war against the Russians. Bin Laden dispatched al-Qaida suicide bombers posing as a television crew to kill Massoud." ( WorldNetDaily: Calling bin Laden's bluff )

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The suicide bombing attack on a charismatic Afghan guerrilla leader Sept. 9 appears to have been a preemptive strike by Osama bin Laden and his supporters to eliminate a CIA-backed opponent who could have been a powerful ally on the ground in any U.S. retaliation for the terrorist assaults two days later on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, intelligence sources said over the weekend.

Two assassins, reportedly Algerians masquerading as television journalists, mortally wounded Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the principal resistance group in Afghanistan opposing the Taleban religious militia and its fugitive guest, Mr. bin Laden.

In its timing and other details, the attack on Mr. Massoud, whose death was confirmed late last week, bears telltale marks of being the work of Mr. bin Laden and his supporters, according to U.S., European and Arab intelligence sources.

The murder seemed designed to decapitate and disrupt Mr. Massoud's loose organization of tribal groups, known as the Northern Alliance, to prevent them from playing a role in a major U.S.-backed military drive — which now seems probable — against the Taleban. (Assassination of Massoud Removed a Potential Key Ally for U.S. : Did bin Laden )

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Ahmed Shah Massoud. [Source: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs]Worried about intercepts showing a growing likelihood of al-Qaeda attacks around the millennium, the CIA steps up ties with Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban. The CIA sends a team of agents to his headquarters in a remote part of northern Afghanistan, seeking his help to capture or kill bin Laden. Massoud complains that the US is too focused on bin Laden, and isn’t interested in the root problems of Taliban, Saudi, and Pakistani support for terrorism that is propping him up. He agrees to help nonetheless, and the CIA gives him more aid in return. However, the US is officially neutral in the Afghan civil war and the agents are prohibited from giving any aid that would “fundamentally alter the Afghan battlefield.” [Washington Post, 2/23/2004] DIA agent Julie Sirrs, newly retired, is at Massoud’s headquarters at the same time as the CIA team (see October 1998). She gathers valuable intelligence from captured al-Qaeda soldiers while the CIA agents stay in their guesthouse. She publishes much of what she learned on this trip and other trips in the summer of 2001. [Washington Post, 2/28/2004]

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General Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, is assassinated by two al-Qaeda agents posing as Moroccan journalists. [Time, 8/4/2002] A legendary mujaheddin commander and a brilliant tactician, Massoud had pledged to bring freedom and democracy to Afghanistan. The BBC says the next day, “General Massoud’s death might well have meant the end of the [Northern] alliance” because there clearly was no figure with his skills and popularity to replace him. [BBC, 9/10/2001; BBC, 9/10/2001] “With Massoud out of the way, the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be rid of their most effective opponent and be in a stronger position to resist the American onslaught.” [St. Petersburg Times, 9/9/2002] It appears the assassination was supposed to happen earlier: the “journalists” waited for three weeks in Northern Alliance territory to meet Massoud. Finally on September 8, an aide says they “were so worried and excitable they were begging us.” They were granted an interview after threatening to leave if the interview did not happen in the next 24 hours. Meanwhile, the Taliban army (together with elements of the Pakistani army) had massed for an offensive against the Northern Alliance in the previous weeks, but the offensive began only hours after the assassination. Massoud was killed that day but Northern Alliance leaders pretend for several days that Massoud was only injured in order to keep the Northern Alliance army’s morale up, and they are able to stave off total defeat. The timing of the assassination and the actions of the Taliban army suggest that the 9/11 attacks were known to the Taliban leadership. [Time, 8/4/2002] Though it is not widely reported, the Northern Alliance releases a statement the next day: “Ahmed Shah Massoud was the target of an assassination attempt organized by the Pakistani [intelligence service] ISI and Osama bin Laden.” [Radio Free Europe, 9/10/2001; Newsday, 9/15/2001; Reuters, 10/4/2001] This suggests that the ISI may also have had prior knowledge of the attack plans.

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The Murder of Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud

(Autumn 2001) Just two days prior to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 Arab terrorists with Belgian passports, posing as journalists, killed one of Afghanistan's most effective leaders, Commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Not only was a charismatic Afghan leader murdered, but a devious strategy was also divulged. With the murder of Commander Massoud the terrorists, directed and controlled by Osama bin Laden, had eliminated a most important leader and the most effective opponent to the Taliban regime.

Ambassador Farhadi (Northern Alliance's ambassador to the United Nations) believed that "the attack on Massoud was directly linked to the terrorist attacks in the United States and that his government offers immediate strategic support to the United States." Continuing, he said: "The Northern Alliance in Afghanistan led by President Rabbani controls more than 20 percent of Afghanistan. We assre the Americans that 99 percent of all Afghans are against the Taliban and also against Osama bin Laden. They are also conscious of the fact that since Osama bin Laden came to Afghanistan in 1996 from Sudan, he has done a lot of harm to the Afghans," Ambassador Farhadi said.