Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan military leader and politician. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.
Ahmad Shah Massoud
View of Panjshir Valley from Massoud's Tomb
Afghan National Army honouring Massoud's resistance at his tomb and memorial in September 2010
Massoud's tomb in Panjshir, 2011.
The Soviet–Afghan War was a protracted armed conflict fought in the Soviet-controlled Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) from 1979 to 1989. The war was a major conflict of the Cold War as it saw extensive fighting between the DRA, the Soviet Union and allied paramilitary groups against the Afghan mujahideen and their allied foreign fighters. While the mujahideen were backed by various countries and organizations, the majority of their support came from Pakistan, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Iran, and the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. The involvement of the foreign powers made the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Combat took place throughout the 1980s, mostly in the Afghan countryside. The war resulted in the deaths of approximately 3,000,000 Afghans, while millions more fled from the country as refugees; most externally displaced Afghans sought refuge in Pakistan and in Iran. Approximately 6.5% to 11.5% of Afghanistan's erstwhile population of 13.5 million people is estimated to have been killed over the course of the conflict. The Soviet–Afghan War caused grave destruction throughout Afghanistan and has also been cited by scholars as a significant factor that contributed to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, formally ending the Cold War.
Above: Mujahideen fighters in Kunar Province, 1987 Below: Soviet airmen with a local Afghan man in Logar Province, 1987
Image: Mortar attack on Shigal Tarna garrison, Kunar Province, 87
The existing border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Postage stamp from 1979 depicting the Arg, with the text reading "The Great Saur Revolution is the fruit of the class struggle"