Ahmad Shah Massoud

**Ahmad Shah Massoud** (2 September 1953-9 September 2001) was an Afghan military commander and politician who served as the Minister of Defense of the Islamic State of Afghanistan from 28 April 1992 until 9 September 2001. He was a powerful resistance commander during the Soviet-Afghan War from 1979 until 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001. His death is thought to have been a warning of the impending 9/11 attacks which happened just two days later, with Massoud having warned the U.S. about.

## Biography

#### Early Life

Ahmad Shah Massoud was born on 2 September 1953 in Bazarack, Panjshir, Afghanistan to a Tajik Sunni Muslim family. 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 the failed uprising against Mohammed Daoud Khan's government and later joined Rabbani's Jamiat-e Islami party.

### Military and Political Career

During the Soviet-Afghan War of 1979-1989, he served as a resistance member and leader of the Afghan mujahideen, playing a major role as a major commander against the Soviet forces, earning him the nickname of "The Lion of Panjshir." In 1992, he signed the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement, in the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan. He was appointed the Minister of Defense as well as the government's main military commander. During the 1990s, his militia fought to protect Kabul against the forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords who were bombing the city, 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.

Following the takeover by the Taliban in 1996, Massoud continued to resist the Taliban's fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. He returned to armed opposition of the group and because of this, was forced to flee to 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. The next year, he visited Europe and urged European powers to pressure Pakistan on its support for the Taliban government and also requested humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan affected by the Taliban fighting. Around this time, Massoud warned western powers about an impending mass terrorist attack on the United States by al-Qaeda who had been raising suspicions in the middle east during the 1990s and early 2000s.

#### Assassination

Ahmad Shah Massoud was killed by two al-Qaeda suicide bombers under the direct orders of Osama bin Laden himself on September 9, 2001 at the age of 48. two days after his death, the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda took place in New York City, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people. Shortly after this, in December 2001, with US Army assistance, the The Northern Alliance eventually won the two-month-long war and removed the Taliban from power.