Ahmad Shah Massoud was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.
Takhar is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeast of the country next to Tajikistan. It is surrounded by Badakhshan in the east, Panjshir in the south, and Baghlan and Kunduz in the west. The city of Taloqan serves as its capital.
Panjshir is one of the thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country containing the Panjshir Valley. The province is divided into seven districts and contains 512 villages. As of 2021, the population of Panjshir province was about 173,000. Bazarak serves as the provincial capital.
The Panjshir Valley is a valley in northeastern Afghanistan, 150 kilometres (93 mi) north of Kabul, near the Hindu Kush mountain range. It is divided by the Panjshir River. The valley is home to more than 100,000 people, including Afghanistan's largest concentration of ethnic Tajiks. In April 2004, it became the heart of the new Panjshir Province, having previously been part of Parwan Province.
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between late 1996 to 2001 after the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) took over Kabul. The United Front was originally assembled by key leaders of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, particularly president Burhanuddin Rabbani and former Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud. Initially it included mostly Tajiks but by 2000, leaders of other ethnic groups had joined the Northern Alliance. This included Karim Khalili, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdullah Abdullah, Mohammad Mohaqiq, Abdul Qadir, Asif Mohseni, Amrullah Saleh and others.
Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, or Bismillah Khan, is an Afghan politician who served as the defense minister of Afghanistan from 2012 to 2015 and for two months in 2021. From 2002 to 2010, he served as Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army, and from 2010 to 2012 he held the post of Interior Minister of Afghanistan. He has an anti-Taliban background and once served as a senior commander under Ahmad Shah Massoud. Despite the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, Mohammadi claims to remain the minister of defense as part of the government of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan.
Mohammad Fahim Dashty was an Afghan journalist, politician and military official. In 2021, he served as spokesman of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan during the Republican insurgency in Afghanistan.
Charikar is the main town of the Koh Daman Valley and the capital of Parwan Province in northern Afghanistan. It has a population of around 171,200, which is majority Tajik populated.
Ahmad Zia Massoud is an Afghan politician who was the Vice President of Afghanistan in the first elected administration of President Hamid Karzai, from December 2004 to November 2009. He is a younger brother of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, the resistance leader against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and against the Taliban. In late 2011, Ahmad Zia Massoud joined hands with major leaders in the National Front of Afghanistan, which strongly opposed a return of the Taliban to power. The National Front was generally regarded as a reformation of the United Front which with U.S. air support temporarily removed the Taliban from power in late 2001.
The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the US and UK invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period that was part of the Afghan Civil War that had started in 1989, and also part of the war in Afghanistan that had started in 1978.
Bāzārak is the provincial capital of Panjshir Province, in the Panjshir Valley of northeastern Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. It is a small city with a total population of 24,723 as of 2015 and has only three police districts (nahias). The total land area of Bazarak city is 9,122 hectares and there are 2,747 dwellings in the city. It comprises six villages: Khanez, Jangalak, Malaspa, Parandeh and Rahmankhel. The tomb of Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the "Lion of Panjshir", is located in Bazarak. The city is divided between the Taliban and Resistance forces.
Amrullah Saleh is an Afghan politician who was the first vice president of Afghanistan from February 2020 to August 2021, and acting minister of Interior Affairs from 2018 to 2019. After the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August 2021, Saleh declared himself the "caretaker" president of Afghanistan and announced the resistance against the Taliban. He was the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) from 2004 to 2010.
The Afghanistan conflict is a continuous series of wars fought in Afghanistan from 1978 through to the present day.
Anaba District is a district of Panjshir Province, Afghanistan. The estimated population in 2019 was 19,978.
Ahmad Massoud is an Afghan politician who is the founder and President of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. He is the eldest son of anti-Soviet military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. He was appointed as the CEO of Massoud Foundation in November 2016. On 5 September 2019, he was declared his father's successor at his mausoleum in the Panjshir Valley.
2021 (MMXXI) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2021st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 21st year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 2nd year of the 2020s decade.
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was a presidential republic that ruled Afghanistan from 2004 to 2021. The state was established to replace the Afghan interim (2001–2002) and transitional (2002–2004) administrations, which were formed after the 2001 United States invasion of Afghanistan that had toppled the limitedly-recognized Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. However, on 15 August 2021, the country was recaptured by the Taliban, which marked the end of the 2001–2021 war, the longest war in US history. This led to the overthrowing of the Islamic Republic under President Ashraf Ghani and reinstating the Islamic Emirate under the control of the Taliban. The US–Taliban deal, signed on 29 February 2020 in Qatar, was one of the critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency, leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul. Soon after, former first vice president Amrullah Saleh declared himself the caretaker president of Afghanistan and announced the republican resistance against the Taliban.
The National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), also known as the Second Resistance, is a military alliance of former Northern Alliance members and other anti-Taliban fighters loyal to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. When the Taliban captured the country on 15 August 2021, former first vice president Amrullah Saleh, citing provisions of the Constitution of Afghanistan, declared himself the caretaker president and announced the republican resistance against the Taliban. Saleh's claim to the presidency was endorsed by Ahmad Massoud, the founder and president of NRF.
The republican insurgency in Afghanistan is an ongoing armed conflict between the National Resistance Front and allied groups which fight under the banner of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on one side, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is controlled by the Taliban on the other side. On 17 August 2021, former first vice president of Afghanistan Amrullah Saleh declared himself the "caretaker" president of Afghanistan and announced the resistance. On 26 August, a brief ceasefire was declared. On 1 September, talks broke down and fighting resumed as the Taliban attacked resistance positions.
Ali Maisam Nazary is an Afghan political advisor currently serving as Head of Foreign Relations for the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) since August 2021.
