In an address to the UK Parliament on the 22nd anniversary of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s assassination, Ahmad Massoud, the leader of the resistance front, said the international community should not ignore the threat posed by terrorism and extremism as it is not confined to Afghanistan’s borders.
He said that one of his father’s “remarkable beliefs” was that political legitimacy only stems from the people.
“In a land often divided by ethnicity, religion and language, he envisioned a decentralized pluralistic Afghanistan where powers are shared equally and justly among its citizens,” Massoud said. “Something that Afghanistan lacks today and has turned it into a ticking bomb for a larger conflict in the future.”
He added that Afghanistan has once again become a sanctuary for global and regional terrorist groups.
“My father warned the international community twenty-two years ago in Paris about the impending danger. The horrific events of September 11, 2001, proved his warning tragically. Today, I echo his words,” he said.
Massoud added that the international community “must not ignore the threat posed by terrorism and extremism for the peril is not confined to Afghanistan’s borders but reaches out to all corners of the globe once again.”
Ahmad Shah Massoud, the son of Colonel Dost Mohammad Khan, was born in Jangalak area in Panjshir district in September 1953. He assassinated by two suicide bombers posing as journalists 17 years ago.
He spent his early childhood in Panjshir and started school at the age of five. As a young boy, he moved to Herat with his family and then to Kabul where he continued his studies.
Massoud enrolled at the Polytechnic University in Kabul in 1973 and at the same time received membership of the Nahzat Islami Afghanistan party. Two years later, in 1975, he led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of the time.
Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated in a suicide bombing in Khajwa Bahawuddin district in Takhar in September 2001.
The anniversary of Massoud’s death is marked annually on 9 September in the country.
