FOLLOW US
Think Tank 2022
In Memory of Ahmad Shah Massoud
Friday, September 9, 2011
Ahmad Shah Massoud, "Lion of Panjshir"
Universal Peace Federation-Netherlands joins with our Afghanistani friends in mourning the passing their national hero and "Amer Sahib e Shaheed" (Martyred Commander), Ahmad Shah Massoud, tragically assassinated on September 9, 2001, just one week after his 48th birthday. How different his country might be, probably with genuine democracy and inter ethic cooperation, were he alive today!
Massoud, the hope of his people, compassionately dedicated his life in service to others:
- as a man of compassion and humanity, dealing respectively with enemies captured during his defending of his country against the Soviets and the Taliban, in a manner worthy of comparison with the great Saladin–Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb;
- as a man of culture and enlightenment, promoting education and culture, and equal opportunity for women, in communities that came under his protection, particularly in the Panjshir; and also,
- as a man of insight and vision in his perceiving the international threat developing in his country, travelling to the West to warn of the international threat it faced if it did nothing about Afghanistan. All he asked was that the West stop Pakistan from supporting the Taliban terror, asserting that then he and his countrymen would be able to restore a civilized government, but shamefully he was ignored.
On this, the tenth anniversary of his passing, we salute Ahmad Shah Massoud, one whom history will surely judge to be a great soul and true man of God, a man of peace of global stature.
Note: In 2008, UPF-Netherlands Ambassadors for Peace S.N. & S.E. Taheri invited a representative of UPF-Netherlands to speak at a large gathering to commemorate Massoud's passing. See Khalili at Massoud gathering: "Afghanistanis admire Dutch soldiers". We presented Ambassador for Peace certificates to Massoud Khalili, who was very critically wounded in the bomb blast that killed his friend and Commander, and to Fereshta Hazrati, a female journalist resident in Sweden, famous for her radio work and website devoted in particular to Afghanistani women, also, posthumously, to Ahmad Shah Massoud. S.E. Taheri will speak at a similar, European level, gathering in Frankfurt, Germany, on September 11, where he will undoubtedly share this message.