Word: massoud
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...sanctuary and symbol. The determined Mujahedin guerrillas have been nurtured by grain from its verdant hills, water from its mountain streams and shelter within caves in the shadow of its snow-capped peaks. Above all, the 70-mile-long valley has been the hideout and headquarters of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the charismatic 30-year-old Mujahedin leader who has united more than 5,000 squabbling resistance fighters under his shrewd and well-organized leadership...
Known as the Lion of Panjshir, Massoud has established a local political and judicial system, organized his own tax system, instituted classes in the use of rocket launchers and heavy artillery, and even set up schools and bus services throughout the valley. His Mujahedin have also hounded their Soviet invaders. Recently they captured and reportedly killed 23 Soviet agents disguised as Mujahedin. By persistently ambushing military convoys traveling between Kabul and the Soviet border, they have caused a severe fuel problem in the capital, a mere 40 miles to the south. Only two weeks ago they compounded that shortage...
Government-run Radio Kabul was soon trumpeting victory, and the official Soviet news agency TASS implied that Massoud's men had been routed and their leader captured or killed. Noted one Western diplomat in Moscow: "They would hardly claim anything that specific unless it were at least partly true." Others were not convinced. Afghan resistance spokesmen in Paris acknowledged that two attempts had been made upon the Lion's life, including one by an undercover agent who took aim from only 30 feet away. But they also insisted that rumors of Massoud's downfall were as overblown...
...although they have scored relatively few victories recently, the guerrillas are by no means ready to accept defeat. "We are dealing with Khomeini in our own way," Mujahedin National Commander Ali Zarkesh, 34, said in his Tehran hideout to an Iranian journalist. (The group's overall leader, Massoud Rajavi, is in exile in Paris.) "We are slowly suffocating his regime, spreading a creeping paralysis throughout his military-police apparatus." The most wanted man on the Ayatullah's hit list, Zarkesh remains convinced that the ruling clerics could be brought down by a violent upsurge of the same sort...
...lord of the Panjshir Valley is unquestionably the charismatic commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. A former engineering student, Massoud, 29, has remained in Afghanistan and worked tirelessly to galvanize support. He has managed to mobilize virtually all 100,000 inhabitants of the valley, while collecting his own taxes, running his own schools and organizing his own food-rationing scheme. He has even used captured Soviet trucks to establish daily bus service in the valley. Massoud is also prudent enough to avoid needless risks. He travels with four gun-wielding bodyguards and packs a 9-mm automatic under his jacket. In order...