Afghanistan: The Missing Peace – Part VI: The Lion of Panjshir

Rudaw English correspondent Robert Edwards was in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul when the US-Taliban peace process collapsed in September. 

He and a team of Afghan filmmakers documented the hopes and fears of the city’s war-weary population, spoke to those involved in peace talks, and to those who will live with the consequences. 

Now, as the peace process gets back on track, this new documentary and six-part written series explores a city anxious for peace – but terrified of the cost.

Read part I, part II, part III, part IV, and part V

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Part VI: The Lion of Panjshir 

Ahmad Shah Massoud is Afghanistan’s national hero. Giant portraits of the Tajik guerrilla chief in his signature pakol hat hang ostentatiously from public buildings in Kabul, his careworn expression captured by muralists on blast walls and on gaudy banners throughout the city. 

His iconic stature has echoes of other famed military strategists like Che Guevara or Mao Zedong. Even my driver Rashad’s Toyota bares Massoud’s face on a cardboard square dangling from the rearview mirror, nodding approvingly as he battles the city traffic. 

Massoud was celebrated for his military prowess while defending his native Panjshir Valley from repeated Soviet attack in the 1980s, earning him the job of defence minister in Burhanuddin Rabbani’s short-lived mujahideen government. After the Taliban seized power in ’96, Massoud returned to the mountains as commander of the Northern Alliance. 

In April 2001, Massoud went to Europe in search of funding to sustain his war. He found a ready ear among world leaders appalled by the Taliban’s destruction of the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan a month earlier. While there, Massoud was invited to address the European Parliament in Strasbourg. His speech was remarkably prescient, warning the West would pay a heavy price if it allowed extremism to fester in Afghanistan.

Five months later, three hijacked passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. A fourth ploughed into a Pennsylvania field. The catastrophic attack, the worst to strike US soil since Pearl Harbor, fired the first shot of what would become an open-ended war on terror. 

The Northern Alliance became Washington’s top ally in the battle to ‘smoke out’ America’s most wanted, Osama bin Laden, from his Afghan hideout. 

Massoud wasn’t around to see his grim prophecy come to fruition, nor was he there to benefit from the resulting largess. The 49-year-old ‘Lion of Panjshir’ was killed just two days before 9/11 by a pair of Tunisian Al-Qaeda assassins posing as journalists, who detonated a device concealed inside a video camera. To this day, security guards in Kabul pay close attention to camera equipment, repeatedly screening my humble Canon for secreted explosives.

Hamid Karzai, the former president, declared September 9 ‘Massoud Day’ in recognition of Afghanistan’s martyred hero. My lasting memory of this national holiday is of sporadic gunfire as armed supporters of Massoud’s tribe charged around Kabul in decorated pickups, loosing off celebratory rounds into the sky. It’s quite a spectacle, best enjoyed under a solid roof. 

“The hospitals will be busy today,” says my fixer Saleem, who has donned his own pakol and scarf for the occasion. We’re scouting locations for a piece to camera and have driven up to Wazir Akbar Khan – a hilltop park in the centre of town topped by Afghanistan’s largest national flag, billowing, slightly threadbare in the hot wind. 

Some kind of memorial park is under construction, funded by the Indian government, next to a dirty Soviet-era swimming pool with tattered bleachers and an Olympic diving platform. Groups of young men draped in Massoud flags roam the park, taking selfies with the dramatic backdrop. We watch as military helicopters buzz around the city below, landing and taking off like steel bees pollinating beige concrete flowers. 

Standing at the ledge, listening to the crackle of gunfire, I wonder what Massoud would have made of the peace process – had he lived to see it.

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It’s election time – Afghanistan’s fourth presidential poll since the Taliban fell – and Massoud’s brother, Ahmad Wali Massoud, is running for office. 

An outrider in the contest, Wali’s campaign is focused on tackling corruption, improving representation for ethnic minorities, and ensuring negotiations with the Taliban take place from a position of relative strength.

Evidence of ballot stuffing, intimidation, and other acts of electoral fraud tend to be downplayed by Kabul’s Western backers, who are nowadays more interested in polling days passing without major incident than with earlier grand ideals of building a model democracy. 

The September 28 election was a two-horse race between the favourite Abdullah Abdullah, a Tajik former foreign minister and serving CEO, and the incumbent Ashraf Ghani, a Pashto former finance minister and World Bank anthropologist. The two men had effectively shared power since the disputed 2014 election after then-US secretary of state John Kerry helped broker a deal.

I went to see Wali at his home in central Kabul a few days before the Massoud Day bulletfest. The house, surrounded by concrete blast walls, is built in classical European style, with tasteful furnishings, magnolia walls, ornate wooden floors, and glass-panelled French windows opening out onto a neat little garden. Lining the walls are portraits of Ahmad Shah Massoud – his ghost a constant presence. 

We are shown inside by Wali’s head of security – the very definition of a hardened Tajik warrior, who weighs us up with his lapis blue eyes, a smile creasing his weather-beaten face, hewn it seemed from the valley walls of Panjshir itself. 

Wali strides into the living room. He is dressed in sky blue salwar kameez under a navy suit jacket, his receding hair swept back and flecked with grey, a closely trimmed moustache peppering his top lip. Like any skilled politician, he comes equipped with an easy smile and sturdy handshake. 

I ask Wali why the Taliban has refused to negotiate directly with the Afghan government.

“Well, for a very simple reason. Because the government of Afghanistan is weak. And no one talks to a weak body. And that is why they refuse,” he says. 

Click here to read Rudaw's full interview with Ahmad Wali Massoud

“If only we did have a strong government, of course the Taliban, branded as a terrorist group, they would never refuse to talk to a government. So because the government is weak, the Taliban feel they are stronger.”

A helicopter thumps overhead, causing the glass to rattle in the French windows. 

“Yes people of Afghanistan are thirsty for peace. But peace, not a deal. Peace, not terrorism, not violence. Peace, not submission to a terrorist group,” he says over the din.



Many Kabulies I spoke to are afraid of losing civil liberties if the government strikes a peace deal with the Taliban. I ask Wali whether a compromise can be reached which ring-fences the rights of women, a free press, and a secular justice system. He has a habit of answering questions with yet more questions.

“When it comes to the real peace, how exactly can you solve these very contradictory values between the Taliban and the rest of the people of Afghanistan?” Wali asks with a theatrical shrug. 

“What do you do with women’s rights? Taliban do not agree with women’s rights. What do you do with freedom of media and press? They don’t agree. What do you do with elections, with democracy? Because if the Taliban accept such things it means they have gone against their own values.” 

He speaks quickly, sniffing loudly between breaths, often abandoning half formed sentences before leaping to the next, impatient to make his point heard.

“It means they have gone against all those, in their words, who were martyred, going against those values. They’re going against their own principal.”

“Don’t forget that, so far, since the creation of the Taliban till now, their position has not changed. Exactly the same thing as it was before. In anything, it has not changed. Nothing.” 

And what about US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and his potential deal with the Taliban? 

“Have they stopped violence? No. More violence. More bloodshed. There are not terrorists anymore? There are. So it’s a deal with the Taliban. It’s got nothing to do with peace for Afghanistan,” Wali says, unable to hide his disdain. 

“When the United States came here 19 years ago, said ok, we want to root out terrorism, we’re against these things, what has changed all of a sudden? They want to strike a deal without taking into consideration the interests of Afghan people. What exactly has changed?”

Suddenly Massoud’s ghost has joined us in Wali’s living room. From beyond the veil of death, again comes the prescient warning. 

“We should not make the mistake of 1989 once again to leave Afghanistan by itself,” Wali says urgently. “We should not make the mistake of dealing with a terrorist group. We should not put the whole situation in Afghanistan and in the region into jeopardy here. Tomorrow we will regret it. The whole world will regret it.”

“Exactly what my brother warned when he went to Europe in 2001. He said today it’s our problem, tomorrow it will be your problem. Exactly that’s what happened.” 

“So what I’m trying to say here, we should not make Afghanistan a safe haven for terrorists. Tomorrow it will end up worldwide. It will affect every citizen of every country.” 

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It’s September 11, 2019 – 18 years to the day since the 9/11 attacks – and I’m back outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, saying my goodbyes to Saleem and the crew. I’m not a superstitious man, but even I feel a twinge of discomfort at the thought of travelling on this date – especially out of Afghanistan where the scheme was hatched. 

I thank my new friends for their work. I’m thrilled with the footage we’ve gathered together and tell them so. An awkward silence follows. I’m suddenly embarrassed, aware I get to leave this place, my passport a ticket to safety. Fixers and local crews who live in conflict zones don’t have this luxury, shouldering all the risk and sharing none of the reward. 

I pass through the first of many security barriers and cross the baking hot car park. A gigantic portrait of Ahmad Shah Massoud looks down gloomily from the terminal entrance. He watches me leave.