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This photo montage made on August 27, 2019 shows the Afghan opposition leader of the time, Ahmad Shah Massoud (right) on April 5, 2001 in Strasbourg, and his son Ahmad Massoud on August 25, 2019 in Kabul. Franck FIFE, Wakil KOHSAR / AFP

His father, Major Massoud, was a national hero in Afghanistan. Nicknamed the "Panshir Lion", he was a figure of Afghan resistance against the Soviets in the 1980s and against the Taliban in the late 1990s. Today, his son Ahmad Massoud wants to take over the torch. At age 30, he launched his political movement with two goals: to drive out the Taliban and restore power to the people.

Same look, same nascent beard, same traditional hat, Ahmad Massoud slips in the footsteps of his father. " I want to follow his path ," he said, "to build a great anti-Taliban coalition to avoid a return to the dark hours of our country ." His ambition is primarily political: to oppose the Taliban insurgency by bringing together the supporters of a free Afghanistan and a tolerant Islamic Republic. In other words, "go back to where my father stopped ". And if it does not work at the polls, " not only me, but hundreds of thousands of young people are ready to take up arms against the insurgents ."

Ahmad Massoud was only 12 years old when the commander died , assassinated by al-Qaeda. Before claiming the inheritance, he traveled a lot. High school in Iran, graduated from the Sandhurst Military Academy in England, master of International Relations in London, the little boy grew up far from home and only returned in 2016 to Afghanistan. Does it support the United States in their negotiations with the Taliban? No, he regrets first that the Afghan government is kept out of the peace process. But above all, the talks give religious extremists a sense of impunity. " We gave them too fast and too many things, for them it's a symbolic victory ".

The solution, according to Ahmad Massoud, is to decentralize the power of the Afghan state so that local communities take their destiny into their own hands. For, according to him, it is the brutality of the political system in Afghanistan that provokes conflicts and leaves the Afghans to pay the price. Moreover, " without the United States, the government is not able to continue the fight against the Taliban ". He says that militias in his home area are already rearming in anticipation of US withdrawal. And swears that by launching his political movement, he acts, like his father, only for the sole interests of Afghanistan.

► See also: The underseat of the agreement between the United States and the Afghan Taliban