Today, Monday, August 23, 2021, the Taliban announced sending its forces to control the state of Panjshir (northeast of Kabul), the stronghold of former commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.

25 years ago, Masoud led a strong front against the Taliban movement and thwarted its attempts to control Panjshir during its previous rule of the country between 1996 and 2001, and now his son Ahmed is addressing the movement that returned to rule the country again in 2021.

Masoud the father.. birth and upbringing

Ahmed Shah Massoud of Tajik origin was born in Panjshir on January 2, 1953.

His father, Dost Muhammad Khan, was a colonel in the army, and his uncle, Abdul Razak Khan, was an intelligence officer.

He studied at Al-Istiklal High School on the French system and mastered French, then became an engineering student at the University of Kabul.

He spoke Dari (Afghan Persian), which is his mother tongue, as well as French and Pashto.

He married the daughter of his bodyguard, nicknamed Uncle Taj al-Din Muhammadi. He has 5 daughters and one son.

He was a prominent member of the Islamic Society, which was founded by Abd al-Rahim Niazi in 1969. He was next to Burhan al-Din Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

- Masoud later founded the organization of the Shura Council of the Nine Provinces, "Shurai Nizar" or "The Consultative Council of Principals", which also includes Abdullah Abdullah, Muhammad Qasim Fahim, Younis Qanooni.

"Lion of Panshir"

Masoud was one of the leaders of the resistance against the Soviet occupation, and he played a major role in driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

He fortified himself in the valley of Banshir, which earned him the nickname "Lion of Panshir", as well as the nickname "Fateh of Kabul, Amir Sahib".

He managed to conclude a treaty with the Soviets for a one-year ceasefire in the Panjshir Valley.

- Masoud took advantage of this calm and headed to other provinces towards Badakhshan, Takhar and Baghlan, and opened other new fronts against the Soviets, after it was only one front in Panjshir.

- He formed a battalion in the name of the Central Forces, and some Arab Mujahideen joined it, including Commander Abdullah Anas Al-Jazaery (Dr. Abdullah Azzam's brother-in-law).

Minister of Defense

- In the early nineties of the twentieth century, Massoud became Minister of Defense and then Vice President Rabbani.

At the end of 1994, most of the Taliban groups that were fighting in the battle for control of Kabul were defeated militarily by the forces of "Islamic State Defense Minister" Massoud.

Masoud tried to launch a nationwide political process with the aim of national cohesion and holding democratic elections. He also called on the Taliban to join the process, but they refused.

Beginning in 1995, the Taliban began bombing Kabul, but they were defeated by the forces of the Islamic State government led by Massoud.

"Northern Alliance"

- In 1996, after the collapse of the Rabbani government and the Taliban's seizure of power in Kabul, Massoud established the "Northern Alliance" against the movement, which was preparing an attack against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and the areas under the control of Abdul Rashid Dostum.

The "Northern Alliance" coalition was formed from discordant forces, which included Dostum, Ismail Khan and Abd Rab al-Rasoul Sayyaf, as well as prominent politicians and diplomats such as Abdul Rahim Ghafourzai, Abdullah Abdullah and Masoud Khalili.

Besides the forces of the Tajiks (mainly Masoud) and the Uzbeks of Dustum, the "Northern Alliance" included Hazara soldiers led by Haji Muhammad Muhaqiq and the Pashtun forces led by leaders such as Abd al-Haq and Haji Abd al-Qadir.

From September 1996 to November 2001, the coalition controlled about 10% of the territory of Afghanistan and 30% of the population in Badakhshan, Kapisa and Takhar provinces, and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Semankan, Kunduz, Ghor and Bamyan.

Assassination of Ahmad Shah Massoud (Reuters)

assassination story

Massoud was assassinated on September 9, 2001, just two days before the September 11, 2001 bombings in the United States.

It is believed that Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, allied with the Taliban, which was in control at the time, sent two members of the organization who succeeded in assassinating Massoud in the town of "Khawaja Bahauddin" in the northern state of Takhar near Tajikistan when they pretended to be journalists and carried a bombed camera with them.

In 2005, a French court in Paris convicted 4 people of "providing logistical support to Massoud's killers" and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from two to seven years.

The four had been arrested by the French police, after linking papers found with the killers of Massoud and an extremist cell in Brussels headed by Tarek Maaroufi, who was sentenced to six years in prison in 2003.

Masoud the son

At the time of his father's assassination, Ahmed was 12 years old.

Ahmed finished his studies in Iran, after which he moved to England and joined St. Hurst Military College, which was his second choice, as he wanted to join West Point College in New York.

He returned to Afghanistan in 2016, and continued to fight the Taliban, and asked the West to help him confront the movement.

- After the Taliban took control of Kabul on the evening of August 15, 2021, he left the state of Panjshir with a group of VIPs on a military plane, and asked all officials not to announce his destination.

He established a political party called the "National Resistance Front" and formed a pocket of resistance in the Panjshir Valley, where remnants of government forces and other militia groups gathered.

August 19, 2021: Ahmed Masoud published an article in the American newspaper "Washington Post", in which he announced the launch of what he described as the "Mujahideen resistance" against the Taliban's control of the country.

- Massoud Jr. says, "Today I am writing from Wadi Banshir (Northeast) and I am ready to follow in my father's footsteps, with the fighting mujahideen ready to face the Taliban again. We have stores of ammunition and weapons that we have patiently collected since my father's time, because we knew this day might come."

We also have the weapons of the Afghans who, in the last 72 hours, responded to my call to join the resistance in Banshir. We have soldiers from the regular army who were disgusted with the surrender of their leaders and are now making their way to the hills of Banshir with their equipment. Ex-members of the Special Forces have also joined our struggle. ".

- At the end of the article, Masoud's son explicitly requested Western support for what he called the "national resistance" and said, "We know that our military forces will not be enough and will be quickly exhausted unless our friends in the West find a way to provide us with support without delay."

August 23, 2021: A source in the Taliban said that the movement has opened channels of communication with Ahmed Masoud, to hand over Banshir peacefully, and that negotiations are still continuing, stressing that the movement will soon send a delegation to discuss the matter closely and provide the necessary guarantees that Ahmed requested.