Son of anti-Soviet mujahideen commander pleads for US to supply weapons & ammo against Taliban — RT World News

The pitch was revealed by Massoud in The Washington Put up, the place a modern-day Charlie Wilson may presumably learn it, and is worded in no unsure phrases.

“America and its allies have left the battlefield, however America can nonetheless be a ‘nice arsenal of democracy,’ as Franklin D. Roosevelt stated when coming to the help of the beleaguered British earlier than the US entry into World Conflict II,” Massoud wrote.

He requested “Afghanistan’s mates within the West” to intercede on his behalf in Washington, New York, London and Paris. He pledged that “mujahideen fighters and I” can have the resolve to battle the Taliban for ladies’s rights and free press in Afghanistan in addition to to guard the West from terrorist assaults.

However we’d like extra weapons, extra ammunition and extra provides.

Massoud, who was titled “chief of the Nationwide Resistance Entrance of Afghanistan,” is the son and inheritor of Ahmad Shah Massoud. He was a distinguished chief within the authentic mujahideen motion, the Islamist insurgency combating Afghanistan’s Communist authorities and the Soviet troops that had been propping it up within the Nineteen Eighties. 

Shah Massoud’s power was one of many main home gamers throughout the civil warfare that adopted the withdrawal of Soviet troops. He held the workplace of protection minister underneath President Burhanuddin Rabbani whose authorities was ousted from Kabul in 1996 by the extra radical and profitable faction of the mujahideen, the Taliban.

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He additionally led an armed resistance towards the Taliban within the northern Panjshir province and was killed by suicide bomber assassins days earlier than the 9/11 terrorist assaults. The Northern Alliance that Shah Massoud as soon as commanded turned a key US ally throughout its retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai, the US-backed successor of Rabbani, honored the mujahideen commander by naming him a nationwide hero of Afghanistan.

The son of the revered warlord, who was nicknamed ‘Lion of Panjshir’ by admirers, is channeling his father’s legacy in an try to recreate the wonderful days of the Panjshir Resistance. His ‘Resistance II’ motion is purportedly supported by just a few thousand fighters and several other army leaders of outdated. The scenario on the bottom nonetheless isn’t what it was throughout the Taliban’s earlier stint in command of Afghanistan, as evidenced by its potential to seize some territories within the north that it didn’t management within the Nineties. 

Taliban northern land grabs got here after years of hostility between the US-backed authorities in Kabul and tribal ethnic minorities who inhabit Northern Afghanistan. Exemplifying the rift was the 2014 presidential election, wherein Pashtun-supported Ashraf Ghani ran towards Northern Alliance chief Abdullah Abdullah. Ghani’s victory was mired by allegations of fraud, and preserving him in energy required US mediation of a power-sharing discount, underneath which Abdullah was appointed chief govt officer. 

The ethnic battle continued however, including to the accumulating disillusion with nationwide politics and a creeping radicalization within the north. A rematch between the 2 politicians in 2019 was marked by a record-low turnout amid Taliban threats towards organizers of the poll.

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In the meantime, the Islamist motion modified too, departing from its monolithically Pashtun origins and turning right into a extra ethnically numerous conglomerate of militant teams, united by a fundamentalist ideology and the wrestle towards NATO’s presence in Afghanistan.

Ahmad Massoud, who’s now in his early 30s, raised his father’s torch in late 2019, attempting to rally supporters and put together them for a doable Taliban onslaught within the wake of the upcoming NATO pullout. As of Might, Western intelligence companies had been reportedly refraining from formally cooperating with him however did be in contact.

Along with the loyalty that his identify evokes, he has the good thing about the army and political schooling he acquired at varied prestigious colleges within the UK. He additionally has a vocal ally in French thinker Bernard-Henri Levy, who was a private good friend of the Lion of Panjshir. In actual fact, the decision for arms in The Washington Put up begins with an anecdote of how Levy advised Shah Massoud: “Whenever you battle to your freedom, you battle additionally for our freedom.”

The French activist, who declared the autumn of Afghanistan into Taliban palms as a private shame of President Joe Biden, has been overtly supporting Massoud Jr.

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