Ahmad Massoud is the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was one of the chief leaders of Afghanistan’s anti-Soviet resistance in the 1980s and was assassinated on September 9, 2001. The personal decree of the Taliban and al-Qaeda is following the footsteps of his late father by assembling and training mujahideen fighters in the Panjshir Valley who are all set to once again resist the Taliban.
Ahmad Massoud has been commanding the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. He intently resembles his father in appearance and action (he leads a militia group in the valley). Social media images displayed ejected Vice President, Saleh, meeting Massoud, wherein the duo plans to put together the initial pieces of a guerrilla movement to take over the Taliban.
Raising out his opinion on the saga of struggle that maps out for him in future and his fellow members against the Taliban, Massoud, wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Post, stating, “I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again take on the Taliban. We have stores of ammunition and arms that we have patiently collected since my father’s time because we knew this day might come.”
He added, “The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under Taliban control, Afghanistan will, without doubt, become ground zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be hatched here once again.” Massoud was 9 years old when his father assembled his soldiers in a cave in Panjashir in 1998, he had heard Levy say, “When you fight for your freedom, you fight also for our freedom.”
Evolving this intricate sentiment, Massoud, in his own words in an opinion piece asked for aid from the West, saying, “We have fought for so long to have an open society, one where girls could become doctors, our press could report freely, our young people could dance and listen to music or attend soccer matches in the stadiums that were once used by the Taliban for public executions — and may soon be again.”
The Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan is the only holdout where anti-Taliban forces seem to be functioning on building a guerrilla movement to override the fundamentalist group.
Panjshir Valley was counted as one of the safest regions in the country during the time of the NATO-backed government from 2001 to 2021. The background plot of the valley’s independence has been closely associated with Ahmad Shah Massoud, Afghanistan’s noted anti-Taliban fighter, who guided the most powerful resistance against the Islamic fundamentalist group from his firm hold in the valley until his alleged assassination in 2001.
In 1953, Ahmad Shah, born in the valley gave himself the title of nom de guerre “Massoud” (“the lucky one,” or “the beneficiary”) in 1979. He worked ceaselessly to resist the communist government in Kabul and the Soviet Union at his time. He is recognized as one of the most influential mujahideen commanders.
