Ahmad Shah Massoud (2 September 1953-9 September 2001) was the Minister of Defense of the Islamic State of Afghanistan from June 1992 until his assassination in September 2001, shortly before the 9/11 attacks. President Hamid Karzai called him the "National Hero of Afghanistan"; the people called him "The Lion of Panjshir".
Biography[]
Ahmad Shah Massoud was born in Bazarak in Panjshir, Afghanistan to a Tajik family. Massoud resisted the Soviet Union's invasion of the country in the 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War and earned the nickname "The Lion of Panjshir". In 1992 he was made the Minister of Defense of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, and fought against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's alliance of militias as well as the Taliban. In January 1995 the Siege of Kabul began, with the Taliban attacking the capital. In 1996, when Kabul fell to the Taliban, Massoud commanded resistance against the Taliban from northeast Afghanistan, while Abdul Rashid Dostum led northwestern Afghan resistance. The two teamed up and formed the Northern Alliance, fighting a guerrilla war with the Taliban. He allied with Russia, Iran, India, and the United States, among other nations, against the Taliban.
In September 2001, Massoud was killed by al-Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists, causing a great uproar in Afghanistan against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban government. In November, the US invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks (something which Massoud had warned the US of), and the Northern Alliance emerged victorious with US aid.