Ahmad Massoud, the son of legendary Afghan insurgent commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, has retreated to his native Panjshir valley north of Kabul together with former vice-president Amrullah Saleh.
“I would like to die than to give up,” Massoud instructed French thinker Bernard-Henri Levy in his first interview because the Taliban took over Kabul. “I am the son of Ahmad Chah Massoud. Give up isn’t a phrase in my vocabulary.”
Massoud claimed that “1000’s” of males had been becoming a member of his Nationwide Resistance Entrance in Panjshir valley, which was by no means captured by invading Soviet forces in 1979 or the Taliban throughout their first interval in energy from 1996-2001.
He renewed his enchantment for assist from international leaders, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, and expressed bitterness at being refused weapons shortly earlier than the autumn of Kabul earlier this month.
“I can’t overlook the historic mistake made by these I used to be asking for weapons simply eight days in the past in Kabul,” Massoud stated, based on a transcript of the interview printed in French.
“They refused. And these weapons — artillery, helicopters, American-made tanks — are immediately within the arms of the Taliban,” he stated.
Massoud added that he was open to speaking to the Taliban and he laid out the outlines of a potential settlement.
“We are able to discuss. In all wars, there are talks. And my father all the time spoke along with his enemies,” he stated.
“We could say that the Taliban agreed to respect the rights of girls, of minorities, democracy, the ideas of an open society,” he added. “Why not attempt to clarify that these principals would profit all Afghans, together with them?
Massoud’s father, a francophile with shut hyperlinks to Paris and the West, was nicknamed the “Lion of Panjshir” for his position in combating in opposition to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan within the Nineteen Eighties and the Taliban regime within the Nineties.
He was assassinated by Al-Qaeda two days earlier than the September 11, 2001 assaults.