In the Name of the Father: Ahmad Massoud’s Continuing Struggle Against Taliban Rule in Afghanistan

In the Name of the Father: Ahmad Massoud’s Continuing Struggle Against Taliban Rule in Afghanistan

The 33-year old Ahmad Massoud is the leader of the National Resistance Front (NRF), which is an Afghan insurgent group waging an insurgency in the northern Panjshir Valley against the Taliban government in Kabul. Massoud, an ethnic Tajik, denounces the present Taliban government, which came to power last year following the withdrawal of U.S forces from Afghanistan. He claims the Taliban is “illegitimate” (Dawn, September 16).

The NRF has become an anti-Taliban military alliance that formed after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban last year. It is referred to as the “Second Resistance” after the Northern Alliance and is composed of largely anti-Taliban Afghan factions and fighters. Founded and led by Massoud, the NRF is struggling to seek a political solution to the current Afghan crisis and build an inclusive government representing all ethnic groups and political factions in Afghanistan (Khaama, July 7).

Massoud is currently striving to strengthen the NRF both militarily and politically. As a leader of a stronger, broad-based and multi-ethnic NRF, he would be able to play a key role in the power game in Kabul.

Early Life and Career 

Born in 1989 in Panjshir valley, Massoud is the only son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who had five other daughters and was the leader of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and was known as the Lion of Panjshir (Massoud was only 12-years old when his father, the legendary anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban fighter, was assassinated in a suicide attack in September 2001 by al-Qaeda. This occurred two days before the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. His father remains the most revered figure of Panjshir valley (Afghan Bios, October 10).

After the assassination of his father in 2001, Massoud went abroad to complete his education and received high school education in Iran. He then graduated from the Sandhurst Military Academy in England and received a Master’s degree in international relations in London. He also wrote his undergraduate and postgraduate theses on the Taliban and argued that it is a criminal franchise network which runs on the money that comes from organized crime, such as kidnapping for ransom and drug peddling. To study the Taliban from an Islamic perspective, he met with Islamic scholars in Turkey and the Arab world (Afghan Bios, October 10). He further concluded that the Afghan mujahidin under the command of his father during the 1980s and 1990s were quite different from the Taliban, who have imposed an extremist form of Islam on Afghanistan (Asia Times, September 5, 2019).

He later returned to his home country in 2016 (RFI, September 6, 2019).  Three years prior to this, in November 2013, Massoud was appointed the CEO of the Massoud Foundation (Asia-Plus, July 7). This is an independent and non-profit organization promoting the political philosophy of the slain Ahmad Shah Massoud: his aspirations for peace, democracy, social justice, and sustainable development in Afghanistan (Massoud Foundation, October 17).

It was eighteen years after the assassination of his father that Massoud stepped into the political fray as the successor of his father. At that time, in September 2019, Massoud pledged to continue his father’s mission to unify the Afghan people against the Taliban at a ceremony held in Panjshir province. A number of former anti-Soviet “mujahideen” commanders, who were his father’s staunch supporters, vowed to continue Ahmad Shah Massoud’s legacy under his son’s leadership (Afghan Bios, October 10). Ahead of the ceremony, Massoud stated, “At this moment, [the Taliban] are intoxicated. They think they are victorious…. Someone needs to detox them to bring them to reality that it is no longer their way, and will never be their way”(Asia Times, September 5, 2019).

Massoud was nevertheless clear about his goals even before his entry into Afghanistan’s political scene. In 2012, for example, he expressed his views during an interview with an Iranian magazine when he said, “My goal is clear to continue on the path of the martyrs, especially my martyred father…. Becoming a Massoud is a very difficult task; I will do my best to be a khalaf (successor)…. I just hope that one day they will remember me well (Teribon. Ir, March 5, 2012).”

Uniting the anti-Taliban Afghan Diaspora in Diplomacy and War

While currently in exile in France, Massoud is making efforts to unite the Afghan diaspora to end Taliban rule by building political pressure. He believes in finding a political solution to the Afghan problem through dialogue with all Afghan groups, including the Taliban. When he addressed a conference in Vienna, he stated “We want to unify the diaspora… and slowly expand the dialogue and reach to the point where we have a roadmap for the future of Afghanistan…. Our aim has never been to strengthen the war but to end the war. We are in the very beginning of a new phase” (Dawn, September 16).

In a move to gather and strengthen anti-Taliban forces under NRF, Massoud held a meeting with Hazara leader Ismail Khan in exile in Iran last year. There he conveyed a message from Tajik President Emomali Rahmon to push for an inclusive government in Kabul. Additionally, the Massoud-led NRF registered with the U.S Justice Department to carry out political lobbying in the U.S against the Taliban government (Economic Times, November 8, 2021).

However, following the fall of Kabul last year, Panjshir Province had become the last outpost for the Taliban to control. With few entry points, the mountainous Panjshir valley offers military advantages for guerrilla warfare. Under the leadership of Massoud, the local militia fighters and Afghan soldiers, who had not surrendered to the Taliban, regrouped in Panjshir to mount an effective resistance against the Taliban last year (Dawn , September 1, 2021). In the first week of September 2021, the Taliban announced that they had taken complete control of Panjshir, which had been the stronghold of the Massoud family for 43 years (Express Tribune, September 6, 2021).

After the Taliban took control of Panjshir, Massoud left Afghanistan and took refuge in Tajikistan. There he made efforts to garner support from regional countries against the Taliban. He sometimes also has visited Afghanistan to meet with resistance units in different regions and is striving to convince the Central Asian countries and the international community to support NRF’s military struggle against the Taliban (TASS, November 1, 2021).

Massoud’s Milieu

Besides his relations with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, who is a strong critic of the Taliban, Massoud also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tajikistan during Putin’s visit to the country in June (Economic Times, November 8, 2021).  Putin apparently showed interest in Massoud’s vision for Afghanistan (Asia-Plus, July 7). After this, In July, there were reports that Massoud was planning to hold a conference with Taliban representatives in Dushanbe. It was planned for some 50 people from Afghanistan’s political parties, intelligentsia and public figures to be invited to participate in the conference (Asia-Plus, July 7).

However, Massoud subsequently seems to have given up on the diplomatic approach to solve the Afghan problem after one year of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. He believes that Afghanistan under the Taliban moved several steps back on all fronts in just one year. Massoud was also disappointed with the diplomatic option for forming an inclusive government in Kabul after the Taliban showed no interest in reforming their oppressive governance of women and minorities (Indian Express, September 5).

Now Massoud believes that war against the Taliban is the only option to resolve the Afghan problem. He claimed in an interview with a Massoud Foundation representative that “there’s no other option but to resist until [Taliban members] understand and realize they need to also submit—as [do] all of us—to a legitimate process which brings a legitimate government which is accountable to the people of Afghanistan, and also to the world.” He added that, “Unfortunately, Taliban leaders have not changed. They are even more radical than before…They failed in fighting international terrorism because they share the same ideology as terrorist groups….They failed in creating inclusivity because they don’t believe in it (Afghanistan International, August 13).”

Conclusion 

Resistance from the Panjshir valley during the 1980s against Soviet forces and against the previous Taliban government from 1996 to 2001 shaped Afghanistan’s political and security landscape under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud. However, will the resistance from Panjshir against the current Taliban government reshape the political landscape of Afghanistan under the leadership of his son–Ahmad Massoud? Will Massoud continue the legacy of his father? Certainly, Massoud faces hard challenges, but his leadership and his strategies both on the diplomatic and warfront against the Taliban indicate the answers to these questions in the years ahead may be affirmative.