Ahmad Shah Massoud

Massoud was studying engineering in Kabul in the 1970s when he joined an Islamist movement, took part in a failed 1975 uprising, and became a mujahideen commander once the Soviets invaded in 1979. He defended the Panjshir Valley for a decade, earning the name "Lion of Panjshir." After the communist government fell in 1992, he signed the Peshawar Accord and became Minister of Defense, but rival warlords refused the deal and Kabul descended into civil war. When the Taliban took power in 1996, he retreated to the north and led the Northern Alliance, which by 2000 held less than ten percent of Afghanistan. He traveled to Europe in 2001 pleading for aid against the Taliban's rule, then returned home and was assassinated by al-Qaeda operatives disguised as journalists. His death came forty-eight hours before September 11; within weeks NATO forces invaded and dismantled the regime he'd fought for five years.