Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was known in his native Afghanistan as the ‘Lion of Panjshir’, was a political and military leader who went on to become one of the most iconic leaders in the history of the country. Massoud was the son of a colonel in the Afghan Royal Army and lived in different parts of Afghanistan during his childhood. He was known to be a gifted student who excelled in the languages and later on went to study engineering at Kabul University, where he came into contact with the Jamiet-e-Islami. He became a part of the student wing of the Jamiet-e-Islami and from then on, he became a member of the struggle to free Afghanistan from the Soviet backed communist government of the PDPA. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Massoud created the mujahideen and waged a war that went on for close to a decade before the Soviets decided to cut their losses and vacate the country. Massoud became one of the most important political and military figures in the country as he helped in overthrowing the communist regime and then emerged as the principal opposition to the Taliban rule later on.
