Ahmad Shah Massoud

Ahmad Shah Massoud c 1953 9 September 2001 was an Afghan military leader and politician Known as the Lion of Panjshir he was the foremost commander of the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet occupation during the SovietAfghan War from 1979 to 1989 Later in the 1990s he led the governments military wing against rival militias and actively fought against the Taliban and their allies from the time the regime rose to power in 1996 and until his assassination in 2001 Massoud came from a Tajik Sunni Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley in northern Afghanistan He began studying engineering at Polytechnical University of Kabul in the 1970s where he developed Islamist and anticommunist views He joined the Jamiati Islami of Burhanuddin Rabbani and in 1975 participated in a failed uprising against President Daoud Khans government During the SovietAfghan War he successfully resisted the Soviets from taking the Panjshir Valley In 1992 he signed the Peshawar Accord a peace and powersharing agreement in the postcommunist Islamic State of Afghanistan He was appointed the Minister of Defense as well as the governments main military commander The accord was opposed by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords who attacked Kabul and initiated the Second Afghan Civil War 19921996 Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996 Massoud who rejected the groups extremist interpretation of Islam returned to armed opposition He became the military leader of the Northern Alliance which by 2000 controlled only 510 of the country In 2001 he visited Europe and urged European Parliament leaders for humanitarian aid to combat the Afghan peoples conditions under the Taliban On September 9 2001 Massoud was killed in a suicide bombing by two alQaeda assassins Two days later alQaeda operatives carried out the September 11 attacks in the United States Within weeks American and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan allying with the Northern Alliance and toppling the Taliban from power By December 2001 the coalition had secured control over the country Regarded as one of the most influential guerrilla leaders in modern history Massoud became an icon of several antiimperialist movements and gained the status of a cult of personality He was posthumously named the national hero of Afghanistan by the order of President Hamid Karzai after the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001 The date of Massouds death 9 September was observed as Martyrs Day under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan His son Ahmad Massoud is leading the National Resistance Front NRF against the Taliban Description above from the Wikipedia article Ahmad Shah Massoud licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia