Ahmad Shah Masʿud

1953 - 2001

Afghan resistance leader.

Ahmad Shah Masʿud was a well-known Afghan resistance fighter and political figure. Born in the Panjshir valley in 1953, Masʿud joined the Afghan Islamic group Jamiʿat-e Islami Afghanistan (the Islamic Society of Afghanistan) in 1973, as a student at the Kabul Polytechnic Institute for Engineering and Architecture. With the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, Masʿud retreated to the Panjshir Valley, where he led a guerrilla war first against the Soviet-supported government and later against the Taliban government. As an ethnic Tajik and one of the few non-Pushtun commanders in the resistance movement, he gained a large following in the northern areas of Afghanistan. He also attracted an international reputation and was sometimes referred to as the Lion of the Panjshir, or as Afghanistan's Che Guevara. When the Islamic resistance fighters captured Kabul in 1992, Masʿud became defense minister under the Burhanuddin Rabbani government.

In 1996, he was forced to flee Kabul in the face of the advancing Taliban forces. Retreating to the north part of Afghanistan, he formed the Northern Alliance, also called the United Front, which continued its guerilla war against the Taliban. The Northern Alliance recaptured Kabul in November 2001. However, Masʿud did not live to see the recapture of Kabul. He was assassinated on 9 September 2001 at his headquarters in northern Afghanistan. Because of the timing of his murder and the way in which it occurred, it is thought to be linked to the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

Bibliography

Ewans, Martin. Afghanistan: A New History. Richmond, U.K.: Curzon, 2001.

Roy, Olivier. Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan. New York; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

— BARNETT R. RUBIN UPDATED BY GRANT FARR