Several politicians and foreign diplomats have paid tribute to Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of an anti-Taliban front, on the 21st anniversary of his assassination. David Martinon, French ambassador to Kabul, praised Massoud as the "hero” who "fought alone against the Taliban".
Ahmad Massoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud and the current leader of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, said, "Ahmad Shah Massoud kept freedom alive with the resistance until the last moment of his life.” According to the NRF leader, the people of Afghanistan will follow his path.
Abdullah Abdullah, the former chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, said that after more than two decades, the name of Ahmad Shah Massoud has become a symbol of steadfastness, equality, independence, realisation of social justice and struggle against aggression.
Ahmad Shah Massoud was one of the most prominent jihadi commanders of Afghanistan who fought the Soviet occupation of the country between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he worked as the Minister of Defense of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, and later formed the National Resistance Front against the Taliban in northern Afghanistan.
Massoud was assassinated in Takhar Province, on September 9, 2001, in a suicide attack by terrorists who posed as journalists.
