Lion of Panjshir: Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Resistance in Afghanistan

In the 1980s, a remote yet strategically vital valley situated North of Afghanistan's capital Kabul gained global fame as the fearsome crucible breaking the Soviet Army's will through a thousand cuts. The hardy mountain warriors of Panjshir Valley originated tales of cunning, resilience and skill devastating entire battalions, helicopter squadrons and special forces of the mighty Red Bear sent to subdue them. And leading these defiant holy warriors casting off feared godless invaders was an unlikely guerrilla mastermind - Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Swearing vengeance for his revolutionary uncle's murder, this soft-spoken yet intense Tajik engineer had trained in exile for jihad against Afghanistan's communist regime increasingly under Moscow's orbit. As insurgency erupted across the countryside through 1978-79, Ahmad Shah helped transform his native Panjshir from sleepy Himalayan backwater into formidable natural fortress. Bloodying wave after wave of Soviet offensives aiming to reopen vital Salang Pass supply corridor, his lethal ambushes and evasive mobility came to terrorize aggressors on the rugged approach up treacherous rock-walled Valley.

From camouflaged cave redoubts and remote mountaintop lookout posts, the outnumbered yet fiercely patriotic Massoud-led mujahideen bled the Soviets relentlessly at the rocky gates guarding Kabul's North for nearly a decade. Charting the Afghan resistance struggle through global media, his improbable stand resisting advanced superpower inspired worldwide admiration. Venerated even amongst enemies for honorable conduct, the "Lion of Panjshir's" masterly efforts repelling Soviet pacification attempts played pivotal role fueling mobilized outrage in Moscow spurring their ultimate 1989 withdrawal.

This rousing David versus Goliath struggle not merely to victory but changing course of Afghanistan's history consummates Ahmad Shah Massoud's legend as national savior. But with the Red Army departs also checkpoints restraining ethnic warlord rapacity, economic control and political score settling. While many former comrades descend into vicious civil bloodletting, Commander Massoud steps forward striving mediating faction disputes through the volatile 1990s. Surviving multiple assassination attempts, he works tirelessly promoting exiled former monarch Zahir Shah as unifying interim figurehead to steer reconciliation.

Yet cruel fate has other plans...