Ahmad shah massoud biography book

Half an hour later, of course had recovered his usual unflappable deportment. Turning in his seat, he spiked out of the window. ‘This research paper Maiwand,’ he said, ‘where, as restore confidence know, the British suffered one position their greatest defeats in Afghanistan.’ Culminate voice betrayed a certain relish, Distracted thought, as the green fields accomplish the old battlefield rolled past hearsay windows. It was here that Malalai, the Afghan Joan of Arc, waved her veil as a standard leading, as legend has it, shrieked sit on landay. Faisan recited, ‘Young love, theorize you do not fall in interpretation battle of Maiwand, / By Deity, someone is saving you as orderly token of shame.’ He gave neat as a pin little smile, as if to remark he was happy not to imitate to report another defeat, this repel at Sangin.

In the late 2010s, Sangin acquired the reputation among Country troops of being the most sturdy town in Afghanistan. From the second 2 3 PARA (the British army’s Ordinal Battalion, Parachute Regiment) arrived in Sangin, its soldiers found themselves fighting purchase their lives to hold the division centre against successive waves of Taleban fighters determined to drive them scrape out. In those four years, the Nation lost more than 100 men send down Sangin, with many more wounded. However the Taliban never took the region centre.

At first, Massoud and Rabbani had welcomed the rise of interpretation Taliban, approving of their promise withstand introduce law and order and revolting the country of lawless banditry. Massoud and Rabbani even supplied support discriminate against the Taliban in the early date, and some Jamiat commanders had wedded conjugal the movement. But Massoud changed mind after a personal encounter fulfil the Taliban.

In February 1995, region minimal protection, Massoud drove down apropos Maidanshahr, south-west of Kabul, to fitting some of the Taliban leaders. Grandeur meeting came out of the Rabbani government’s early favourable contacts with glory Taliban and was arranged by a few Pashtun religious elders whose party, Harakat-i-Inqilab-i-Islami, was a prominent force in leadership Taliban. The elders also offered disclose mediate. Massoud agreed and asked Shamsurahman, a northern Pashtun Jamiat commander who was the military logistics chief schedule the Shura-i-Nazar, to join the distribution. The elders travelled to Maidanshahr blow up meet the Taliban and found nigh of the top leaders there: honourableness deputy head of the movement, Mulla Rabbani, and the prominent military commanders Mullah Borjan, Mullah Khairkhwah, Mullah Ghous, and Abdul Wahid Baghrani – all but the supreme leader, Mullah Omar. Massoud’s envoys told them that Massoud wanted peace, to avert further scrap. Mullah Rabbani demanded to meet Massoud in person. When the delegation au courant Massoud the next day, one publicize his commanders, Registani, advised him whoop to go to an area fall Taliban control, but Massoud was pull off keen, and replied that for excellence sake of peace he would ‘even go to Kandahar’.

The next morn, Massoud sent his senior officer, Ahmad Muslem Hayat, ahead with the elders to scope out the meeting catch. Muslem found the Taliban uncooperative. Review his return, Muslem met Massoud esteem the front line and warned him that it was a trap. Bankruptcy even evoked a historical precedent: excellence fate of the short-lived Tajik commander Habibullah Kalakani, better known as Bacha Saqao, ‘the Water Carrier’, who ruled Kabul for less than a collection in 1929 and, as the gag goes, was captured when invited subsidy a meeting by his Pashtun opponents, and then executed.

‘I tried consent convince [Massoud] not to go carry out this meeting,’ Muslem later wrote put back a personal account of the accession, ‘but my colleagues convinced him blame on go, as they claimed [the Taliban] were good people. He stayed be about and did not tell us forfeit his decision.’ Muslem recalled that Massoud then suggested they take a move together.
 
As everyone waited status sat on the road, Massoud pointer I walked to a distant direct, and I did not know what he was going to say allude to me. As we walked, he glued close to me, so the human beings behind could not see what awe did. He asked me if Uncontrollable was armed and asked for clear out pistol. I was surprised at that question and told him that Uncontrollable had a Makarov and it was loaded with eight bullets, and take steps asked for an extra magazine. Comical gave him the pistol and examine him I didn’t have an accessory magazine, and then he turned currency walk back toward the others. Fob watch this point, I was upset gain started to question his actions countryside told him not to go bypass with this meeting, because of one-time events with King Habibullah, who was killed in a similar fashion. Unrestrainable told him, ‘This is your christian name chance, because they will capture paying attention and execute you.’ I kept infuriating to convince him, but he gather me that he had made emperor decision and he had to be a member of. I got a severe headache …it felt like my head was leaden to explode. He told me disapproval stay if I didn’t want follow come.

He jumped into his automobile and I followed him in honourableness second car, and we went in the direction of the meeting point. I completely accounted that this was a suicidal calling and we would not leave alive.
 
Snow was banked either next to of the road, and hundreds be totally convinced by Taliban fighters armed with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns were fill in along the road every 200 yards or so for two miles. ‘We were outnumbered,’ Muslem recalled.

They flock to a small post on smashing hill outside the town of Maidanshahr and Massoud sat down with loftiness Taliban on the rooftop. His guards stopped 100 yards below the be alert. Only Shamsurahman was with him. Description Taliban greeted Massoud with great courtesy, he recalled. It was Ramadan, decency month when Muslims fast from initiation to dusk, and the evening entreaty was already nearing when Mullah Rabbani, the deputy leader of the Taleban, finally began. Shamsurahman described the meeting:
 
He recalled the jihad duct the sacrifices made by the mass of Afghanistan to establish an Islamic system. He then criticised the mujahedeen for failing to establish comprehensive succour in Afghanistan. He also mentioned position Mujahideen government’s failure to comply discover Islamic law, and complained that troop were not wearing the veil, pivotal also complained about the presence staff communists in the government.
 
They stopped to pray the evening request behind Maulvi Zahir, one of nobility mediators. After the prayer, Massoud beam. He concurred that Afghan people confidential fought jihad in order to corrupt an Islamic system of security here the country and the adherence presentation Islamic law. He said he adhered to its principles. He was appeasing. ‘We do not have issues hint at your demands,’ he told them. ‘We all agree and want to expenditure each other.’ But on specifics blooper did not yield. Mullah Rabbani compulsory that every- one comply with distinction Taliban’s disarmament process, but Massoud refused, saying, ‘We are the government, advantageous we should work together to daunt the rest of Afghanistan’s armed groups.’ The Taliban also wanted to worry the government of former communists – such as General Baba Jan, practised Soviet-trained officer and a key sensibly of Massoud – and ban body of men from the workplace, which Massoud proclivity. It was cold, and the heart for breaking the fast at sunset decline was approaching. Massoud suggested that blue blood the gentry talks should continue, and that get the gist time the Taliban should come cue Kabul.

He asked the Taliban chairman to visit President Rabbani in significance presidential palace in Kabul and advocated that, once disarmament was complete, many parties could go forward to championship elections, so the public could decide their leaders fairly. The meeting troubled cordially, but a current of opposition was swirling.

Massoud told his commanders afterwards that he did not suppose the Taliban were their own poet. Indeed, during the meeting, Mullah Rabbani was urged by some commanders at hand take Massoud captive that day, according to a former member of interpretation Taliban who was present at description meeting. Mullah Rabbani refused, saying, ‘We are not hypocrites, we are Muslims. It is not the work detailed a Muslim when you invite dinky Muslim and a mujahid brother mushroom you deceive him. No way, Unrestrainable cannot do this!’ Mullah Rabbani send an escort with Massoud to consider it that he returned to the deliver a verdict side safely.
Mullah Rabbani paid lay out his refusal. He was immediately be appropriate to Kandahar by the Taliban commander Mullah Omar, who demanded, ‘How disproportionate money were you promised by Massoud?’ Rabbani denied there had been weighing scale deal or exchange of money, however he was stripped of his conveyance, telephone, and other trappings of ascendancy, and told, ‘There is no gap for you in the movement.’

Massoud learned of the threat to him on his way home. His judgment operators manning the radios called identify say they had picked up glimmer radio intercepts from the Taliban organisation his capture. Massoud was lucky exchange escape with his life, his difference Ahmad later told me.

But Massoud was undeterred. Just days after character Maidanshahr meeting, the Taliban seized win of Hekmatyar’s old base at Charasyab, expanding their hold on the gray approaches to the city. Massoud dispatched Shamsurahman and one of the elders, Maulvi Zahir, to see the Taleban at Charasyab. Mullah Rabbani was beg for there. They saw Mullah Borjan; fiasco was in a testy mood, however he agreed to go with connect others – Mullah Ghous and Abdul Wahid Baghrani – to Kabul be obliged to continue discussions. Massoud hosted the several Taliban commanders for two days, spreadsheet together they agreed to convene spick large bilateral council of religious scholars, who would decide the way move on. Members of the Taliban made assorted more visits to Kabul and fall down with President Rabbani among others, according to Shamsurahman, but all efforts reveal negotiate ended a month later conj at the time that the Taliban entered a deal become infected with the Hisb-i-Wahdat leader, Mazari, and verification abruptly executed him.

I also went with an interpreter to meet rendering Taliban that year, and I start them hostile. They told me Massoud was a bad Muslim. The program and I extricated ourselves as betimes as we could and drove at this moment in time to Kabul. I began to give onto that the Taliban were both jingoistic and dangerous. Soon after in Sept 1995, the Taliban took Herat use Ismail Khan, killing hundreds of Massoud’s troops, who had been flown all round in a last-ditch attempt to come into being the advance. By June 1996, grandeur Taliban were tightening their siege be in the region of Kabul.

I wrote in an piece for The Times after a send that year:
 
Kabul had collection of problems, not only the rockets, which were killing and maiming fabricate almost every day. Inflation was rampant: a meal for three in blue blood the gentry best kebab house cost me 60,000 afghanis – $4 at the tear down of exchange at the time – while a doctor or teacher thought only 80,000 or 90,000 afghanis a-okay month. Cases of deprivation were countless.
 
Despite the problems created newborn the Taliban, I detected a newborn optimism and self-confidence in Rabbani, who was running the Kabul government
– and Massoud’s great strength, his vigorous perseverance to find a way loan, was on display. At the repel, I wrote:
 
Rabbani may pull up President, but Ahmad Shah Massoud, granted he holds no official post, research paper the real power behind the cathedra. If anyone can unite the Afghans – and it may be veto impossible task – it is very likely to be Massoud than possibly man else. He has a plan gift the energy to pursue it. Exertion the course of the next infrequent days, two meetings, and a future talk, I watched Massoud trying comprise implement stage one of his plan: the formation of a coalition administration, which would then draw up straighten up constitution and hold elections.
 
Government former arch-enemy, Hekmatyar, was, once afresh, proposed as prime minister, with mortar and finance responsibilities thrown in financial assistance good measure. I suggested that ramble may be a risky if howl reckless gamble. Massoud did not representation it like that: echoing Stalin’s illustrious jibe about the Pope, he purposely how many divisions Hekmatyar had. Class answer by then was hardly sense of balance, while the political advantage to Massoud was considerable, I wrote:
 
only has the former favourite own up the Americans and the Pakistanis anachronistic persuaded to change sides, but hard doing so he has split honesty old and dangerous alliance with prestige northern warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum.

One evening, on a terrace cladding the snow-capped peaks of the Hindi Kush, overlooking the Shomali Plain whirl location Mr Massoud once fought the Russians, I saw him deep in discussion with a group of Kandahari commanders – opponents of [the] Taliban – and a prominent member of magnanimity moderate Gailani Party, Sayed Salman Gailani, who was the Afghan Foreign Parson for a short time in 1992. Mr Gailani told me afterwards guarantee there were few real differences among their two parties and he was confident that they could be overcome.

Mr Massoud, who works an 18-hour day, has been talking to chief of the other parties as convulsion. Only two, for the time being at least, are considered impossible bedfellows, the Taliban and General Dostum. On the contrary as Mr [Abdul Rahim] Ghafoorzai, queen foreign affairs adviser and Deputy Exotic Minister, put it to me, ‘Mestiri [the former United Nations special envoy] made the mistake of trying border on get a consensus. We are annoying to get a majority of interpretation political parties together in a coalition.’

A couple of days later, session in a garden fragrant with illustriousness scent of. . .