138-557: Ahmad Shah Massoud ( Dari : احمد شاه مسعود , Persian pronunciation: [ʔæhmæd ʃɒːh mæsʔuːd] ; September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was an Afghan military leader and politician. He was a guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation during the Soviet–Afghan War from 1979 to 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militia, and actively fought against
276-405: A guerrilla war . He subsequently took full control of Panjshir, pushing out Afghan communist troops. Oliver Roy writes that in the following period, Massoud's "personal prestige and the efficiency of his military organization persuaded many local commanders to come and learn from him." Following the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, Massoud devised a strategic plan for expelling
414-628: A Soviet truce, Massoud said in an interview: Hezb-i Islami men are like cancer, that is why one has to treat the cancer first. Britain's MI6 having activated long-established networks of contacts in Pakistan were able to support Massoud, and soon became their key ally . MI6 sent an annual mission of two of their officers as well as military instructors to Massoud and his fighters. They also gave supplies to Massoud which included sniper rifles with silencers and mortars. As well as training Massoud's junior commanders, MI6 team's most important contribution
552-566: A Taliban attempt to capture the city of Qala e Naw . On 8 July, the Taliban captured the strategically important Karukh District in Herat Province . On 8 July, Abubaker Muradi, deputy head of National Directorate of Security (NDS), and Khir Mohammad Arefi, a commander of a territorial army, along with dozens of other security personnel surrendered to the Taliban without a fight. Khan Jan Zafar and Mohammad Farid Akhizai, two members of
690-468: A Taliban divisional commander, Qari Jabar. By the end of May, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden had completely withdrawn their forces from Afghanistan. In June, the Taliban captured 69 districts from the Afghan government. They entered the cities of Kunduz and Puli Khumri and besieged Mazar-i-Sharif . Among the locations they captured was Afghanistan's main border crossing with Tajikistan and
828-517: A US defence official, these airstrikes amounted to only "a handful" each day. On the first weekend of July, hundreds of armed women took to the streets of northern and central Afghanistan in demonstrations against the Taliban offensive, the largest one taking place in Firozkoh , the capital of Ghor Province . The provincial governor Abdulzahir Faizzada reported in an interview with The Guardian that many Afghan women, some of whom recently escaped
966-487: A capital city with primarily residential areas by all the factions involved – including the government forces. Crimes were committed by individuals within the different armed factions. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar released 10,000 dangerous criminals from the main prisons into the streets of Kabul to destabilize the city and cut off Kabul from water, food and energy supplies. The Iran-controlled Wahdat of Abdul Ali Mazari , as well as
1104-588: A compromise. Bin Laden reportedly "hated Ahmad Shah Massoud". Bin Laden was involved in ideological and personal disputes with Massoud and had sided with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against Massoud in the inner-Afghan conflict since the late 1980s. But Hekmatyar refused to accept a compromise, confident that he would be able to gain sole power in Afghanistan. On April 24, 1992, the leaders in Peshawar agreed on and signed
1242-548: A continuation of the bottom-up succession of negotiated or paid surrenders to the Taliban from the village level upwards that started following the February 2020 US–Taliban deal . The offensive began on 1 May 2021, coinciding with the withdrawal of the United States's 2,500 troops in Afghanistan , and those belonging to other international allies . Large numbers of armed civilians, including women, volunteered with
1380-679: A distinction between varieties of the Sistan region and the varieties in the Western group. However Encyclopaedia Iranica considers the Sistani dialect to constitute their own distinctive group, with notable influences from Balochi . Dari does not distinguish [ ɪ ] and [ ɛ ] in any position, these are distinct phonemes in English but are in un-conditional free variation in nearly all dialects of Dari. There are no environmental factors related to
1518-588: A doctrine hostile to political dissent, whether inside or outside the party. The PDPA started reforms along Marxist–Leninist and Soviet lines. The reforms and the PDPA's affinity to the Soviet Union were met with strong resistance by the population, especially as the government attempted to enforce its Marxist policies by arresting or executing those who resisted. Between 50,000 and 100,000 people were estimated to have been arrested and killed by communist troops in
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#17327721701361656-519: A failed uprising against Mohammed Daoud Khan 's government. He later joined Rabbani's Jamiat-e Islami party. During the Soviet–Afghan War, his role as an insurgent leader of the Afghan mujahideen earned him the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" ( شیر پنجشیر ) among his followers. Supported by Britain's MI6 and to a lesser extent by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), he successfully resisted
1794-479: A favorable regime under Hekmatyar in Kabul so that it could use Afghan territory for access to Central Asia . Hekmatyar's rocket bombardments and the parallel escalation of violent conflict between two militias, Ittihad and Wahdat, which had entered some suburbs of Kabul, led to a breakdown in law and order. Shia Iran and Sunni Wahabbi Saudi Arabia , as competitors for regional hegemony , encouraged conflict between
1932-474: A fight, culminating with victories in weeks-long battles of major cities Herat , Kandahar and Lashkargah on 13 August. On 15 August, President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and the Taliban captured the Afghan capital Kabul with only sporadic resistance; thus, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan's government fell, resulting in the de facto takeover of the country and the reinstatement of
2070-455: A force of less than 1,000 ill-equipped guerrillas, the Panjshir valley mujahideen grew to a 5,000-strong force by 1984. After expanding his influence outside the valley, Massoud increased his resistance forces to 13,000 fighters by 1989. The junior commanders were trained by Britain's SAS as well as private military contractors, some being sent as far as Oman and even SAS training grounds in
2208-411: A lightly equipped commando -like formation numbering 33 men, whose mission was to carry out hit-and-run attacks outside the Panjshir, sometimes as far as 100 km from their base. These men were professional soldiers, well-paid and trained, and, from 1983 on, they provided an effective strike force against government outposts. Uniquely among the mujahideen, these groups wore uniforms, and their use of
2346-717: A long list of governors might have Taliban ties. The Taliban also enjoyed substantial support by various other armed militant groups, especially al-Qaeda and its associates like Jamaat Ansarullah . Militants of al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) reportedly fought alongside the Taliban in the 2021 offensive. In the south and east, various Pakistani militant groups supported the Taliban offensive including Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (which had about 5,000 fighters in Afghanistan), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen , Lashkar-e-Taiba , and Jaish-e-Mohammed . In May,
2484-429: A military commander and a civilian administrator, and each had a judge, a prosecutor and a public defender . Massoud's policies were implemented by different committees: an economic committee was charged with funding the war effort. The health committee provided health services, assisted by volunteers from foreign humanitarian non-governmental organizations , such as Aide médicale internationale . An education committee
2622-444: A modern dialect form of Persian that is the standard language used in administration, government, radio, television, and print media. Because of a preponderance of Dari native speakers, who normally refer to the language as Farsi ( فارسی , "Persian"), it is also known as "Afghan Persian" in some Western sources. There are different opinions about the origin of the word Dari . The majority of scholars believe that Dari refers to
2760-528: A nearly identical categorization but considered varieties spoken in the Sistan region to constitute a distinct group. Takhar and the MOE only discussed vocabulary differences between the dialect groups and did not extensively discuss phonological differences between these groups. However there was a noticeable difference in the romanizations of the Western dialects and the South-Eastern dialects. Chiefly that
2898-469: A particular interest in ethics , politics , universal justice . Friends and family recall an instance where Massoud, returning from school, came to the defense of a younger boy leaving the three bullies knocked-out on the pavement. More formatively, Massoud followed closely reports of the 1967 Six-Day War and the defiant statements of Arab leaders like Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser . He later told researcher Peter DeNeufville that, at fourteen,
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#17327721701363036-437: A political settlement acceptable to all sides and parties. With United Nations support, most Afghan political parties decided to appoint a legitimate national government to succeed communist rule, through an elite settlement. While the external Afghan party leaders were residing in Peshawar, the military situation around Kabul involving the internal commanders was tense. A 1991 UN peace process brought about some negotiations, but
3174-1300: A shared heritage that includes thinkers, writers, and poets of the Farsi language against those who believe that Dari has older roots and provides a distinct identity that cannot be confused with Iran's claim. 2021 Taliban offensive Taliban victory [REDACTED] al-Qaeda Taliban forces Al-Qaeda Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) Territorial Army Pro-government militias National Directorate of Security CIA-backed Khost Protection Force (KPF) United States Air Force United States Navy [REDACTED] Taliban Afghan government claim : 9,819 killed 5,472 wounded 54 captured As per media reports : Heavy losses [REDACTED] Afghanistan Afghan official figure : Not disclosed As per media reports : 1,537 killed 972 wounded 677 captured 2,324+ deserted 6,000 servicemen of KPF surrendered Thousands of soldiers surrendered Timeline Major operations Airstrikes Major insurgent attacks 2002 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 Massacres Other The 2021 Taliban offensive
3312-465: A wide area in the west of Kabul which is mainly recognized as Dashti Barchi, and some regions near Herat . As a group, the Hazaragi varieties are distinguished by the presence of retroflex consonants and distinctive vocabulary. However it has been shown that Hazaragi is more accurately a sub-dialect of Dari rather than its own variety of Persian. Afghanistan's Ministry of Education does not make
3450-454: A year. Despite engaging more men and hardware on each occasion, the Soviets were unable to defeat Massoud's forces. In 1982, the Soviets began deploying major combat units in the Panjshir, numbering up to 30,000 men. Massoud pulled his troops back into subsidiary valleys, where they occupied fortified positions. When the Soviet columns advanced onto these positions, they fell into ambushes. When
3588-496: Is going to be weak and incapable of stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan." Massoud wrote: All the parties had participated in the war, in jihad in Afghanistan, so they had to have their share in the government, and in the formation of the government. Afghanistan is made up of different nationalities. We were worried about a national conflict between different tribes and different nationalities. In order to give everybody their own rights and also to avoid bloodshed in Kabul, we left
3726-687: Is its conservative nature compared to, for example, the Tehrani dialect. This can be seen in its Phonology (e.g. it's preservation of "Majhul" vowels), Morhphonology and Syntax, and it's Lexicon. A further distinction may be made between varieties in and near Kabul and varieties in and near Afghan Turkistan. With dialects near Kabul exhibiting some influences from languages in southern Afghanistan and South Asia and dialects in Afghan Turkistan exhibiting more influence from Tajik . All South-Eastern varieties exhibited some influence from Uzbek . Despite
3864-495: Is sugar – Rhyme method in Dari is sweeter Uzūbat usually means "bliss", "delight", "sweetness"; in language, literature and poetry, uzubat also means "euphonious" or "melodic". Referring to the 14th-century Persian poet Hafez , Iqbal wrote: شکرشکن شوند همه طوطیان هند Šakkar-šakan šavand hama tūtīyān-i Hind زین قند پارسی که به بنگاله میرود zīn qand-i Pārsī ki ba Bangāla mē-ravad English translation: All
4002-678: Is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan . Dari Persian is the Afghan government's official term for the Persian language; it is known as Afghan Persian or Eastern Persian in many Western sources. The decision to rename the local variety of Persian in 1964 was more political than linguistic to support an Afghan state narrative. Dari Persian is most closely related to Tajiki Persian as spoken in Tajikistan and
4140-415: Is the common language spoken in cities such as Balkh , Mazar-i-Sharif , Herat , Fayzabad , Panjshir , Bamiyan , and the Afghan capital of Kabul where all ethnic groups are settled. Dari Persian-speaking communities also exist in southwestern and eastern Pashtun-dominated areas such as in the cities of Ghazni , Farah , Zaranj , Lashkar Gah , Kandahar , and Gardez . Dari Persian has contributed to
4278-571: Is the language of the cities of Madā'en; it is spoken by those who are at the king's court. [Its name] is connected with presence at court. Among the languages of the people of Khorasan and the east, the language of the people of Balkh is predominant." Dari Persian spoken in Afghanistan is not to be confused with the language of Iran called Dari or Gabri, which is a language of the Central Iranian subgroup spoken in some Zoroastrian communities. Dari comes from Middle Persian which
Ahmad Shah Massoud - Misplaced Pages Continue
4416-414: The pakul made this headwear emblematic of the Afghan resistance. Massoud's military organization was an effective compromise between the traditional Afghan method of warfare and the modern principles of guerrilla warfare which he had learned from the works of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara . His forces were considered the most effective of all the various Afghan resistance movements. The Soviet army and
4554-402: The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan , Dari Persian is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan; the other is Pashto . Dari Persian is the most widely spoken language in Afghanistan and the native language of approximately 25–55% of the population . Dari Persian serves as the lingua franca of the country and is understood by up to 78% of the population. Dari Persian served as
4692-763: The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) following the US-recommended strategy of sacrificing rural areas in favour of defending key urban centres. Factors in the ANSF loss to the Taliban included the February 2020 and April 2021 drops in US support, in which technical, proprietary software and logistics support, in particular aerial support, that the ANSF had been trained to depend on, were suddenly removed. Errors in US coalition training of
4830-522: The CIA knew everything. But they didn't. They supported some bad people [meaning Hekmatyar]." Primary advocates for supporting Massoud were the US State Department 's Edmund McWilliams and Peter Tomsen , who were on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Others included two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, both of whom championed Massoud as
4968-551: The French language would earn him greater affinity among French journalists and politicians , later conservative Islamist opponents such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Taliban would derogatorily dub him "The Frenchmen" or "The Parisian " suggestive of his sympathies to Western culture . While at the Lycée , Massoud was described as an intellectually-gifted student, hard-working, religiously devout, and mature for his age with
5106-702: The Hairatan border crossing at the northern end of Kabul's supply highway, and other non- Pashtun generals based in Mazar-i-Sharif , feared removal by Najibullah and replacement by Pashtun officers. When the generals rebelled, Abdul Rashid Dostum , who held general rank as head of the Jowzjani militia, also based in Mazar-i-Sharif, took over. He and Massoud reached a political agreement, together with another major militia leader, Sayyed Mansour, of
5244-505: The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan . The speed of the Taliban's takeover came as a surprise to many, including the governments of the United States and their allies, Russia and the Taliban themselves. Factors prior to May 2021 included the Taliban's effective use of online social media, its strategic choice of attacking northern provinces, and the Taliban's freedom of movement on the main Afghan highways that resulted from
5382-704: The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan , was established under the interim government of Hamid Karzai . Under the 1992 Peshawar Accord, the Defense Ministry was given to Massoud while the Prime Ministership was given to Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar refused to sign. With the exception of Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami, all of the other Peshawar resistance parties were unified under this peace and power-sharing accord in April 1992. Although repeatedly offered
5520-527: The Ismaili community based in Baghlan Province. These northern allies consolidated their position in Mazar-i-Sharif on March 21. Their coalition covered nine provinces in the north and northeast. As turmoil developed within the government in Kabul, no government force stood between the northern allies and the major air force base at Bagram , some seventy kilometers north of Kabul. By mid-April 1992,
5658-520: The Long March , of Che Guevara 's career, the memoirs of General de Gualle , General Võ Nguyên Giáp , Sun Tzu 's Art of War , and an unnamed handbook on counterterrorism by an American general which Massoud called "the most instructive of all". After this failure, a "profound and long-lasting schism" within the Islamist movement began to emerge. The Islamic Society split between supporters of
Ahmad Shah Massoud - Misplaced Pages Continue
5796-629: The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) , Gulbaddin Hekmatyar , Massoud agreed to take part in a coup against Daoud with his forces rising up in the Panjshir and Hekmatyar's elsewhere. In July 1975, Massoud, with help from the Pakistani intelligence , led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of Daoud Khan. While the uprising in the Panjshir saw initial success, even taking
5934-774: The Peshawar Accord , establishing the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan – which was a stillborn 'state' with a paralyzed 'government' right from its inception, until its final succumbing in September 1996. The creation of the Islamic State was welcomed though by the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Islamic State of Afghanistan was recognized as the legitimate entity representing Afghanistan until June 2002, when its successor,
6072-579: The Republic of Afghanistan was established. These developments gave rise to an Islamist movement opposed to the increasing communist and Soviet influence over Afghanistan. During that time, while studying at Kabul University , Massoud became involved with the Muslim Youth (Sazman-i Jawanan-i Musulman), the student branch of the Jamiat-e Islami (Islamic Society), whose chairman then was
6210-554: The Saydabad District in Maidan Wardak Province, which is called the gateway to Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul. They captured 700 trucks and Humvees from the Afghan security forces, and dozens of armored vehicles, Boeing Insitu ScanEagle drones and artillery systems. An Afghan Air Force Mil Mi-17 was shot down by the Taliban, killing three pilots, while a UH-60 Black Hawk was damaged on
6348-481: The Scottish Highlands . These forces were divided into different types of units: the locals (mahalli) were tasked with static defense of villages and fortified positions. The best of the mahalli were formed into units called grup-i zarbati (shock troops), semi-mobile groups that acted as reserve forces for the defense of several strongholds. A different type of unit was the mobile group (grup-i-mutaharek),
6486-535: The Soviet border raising alarm in both Kabul and Moscow which brought upon Massoud and his group a government counterattack. Believing that an uprising against the Soviet-backed communists would be supported by the people, Massoud, on July 6, 1979, started an insurrection in the Panjshir, which initially failed. Massoud decided to avoid conventional confrontation with the larger government forces and to wage
6624-540: The Soviet Union . Massoud studied engineering and architecture but never attempted to learn Russian . There he found interest in politics , political Islam , and anti-Communism which often put him and his pious peers at odds with communist -inspired students. In 1973, former Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan was brought to power in a coup d'état backed by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan , and
6762-637: The Tajik Supreme Soviet , trying to oust communism from the neighboring Tajikistan to further destabilize the dying Soviet Union, which would also impact the Afghan government. At that time, as per Asad Durrani , the director-general of the ISI during this period, Massoud's base camp was in Garam Chashma , in Pakistan. By 1992, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Afghan regime eventually began to crumble. Food and fuel shortages undermined
6900-684: The Taliban , from the time the regime rose to power in 1996, and until his assassination in 2001. Massoud came from an ethnic Tajik of Sunni Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley in Northern Afghanistan. He began studying engineering at Polytechnical University of Kabul in the 1970s, where he became involved with religious anti- communist movements around Burhanuddin Rabbani , a leading Islamist . He participated in
7038-533: The Taliban , who laid siege to the capital in January 1995 after the city had seen fierce fighting with at least 60,000 civilians killed. Following the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Massoud, who rejected the Taliban's fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, returned to armed opposition until he was forced to flee to Kulob , Tajikistan , strategically destroying the Salang Tunnel on his way north. He became
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#17327721701367176-658: The border with Iran to escape the Taliban. On 11 July, Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton announced the end of its military presence in Afghanistan, with the last 80 personnel having left the country in recent weeks. On 12 July, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan Austin S. Miller stepped down from his post. The same day Afghanistan's foreign ministry announced that they have killed Taliban's intelligence chief, Kari Shagasi, and arrested two of his followers in Logar province . As of 12 July,
7314-687: The ezāfe ) have often been employed to coin words for political and cultural concepts, items, or ideas that were historically unknown outside the South Asian region, as is the case with the aforementioned "borrowings". Dari Persian has a rich and colorful tradition of proverbs that deeply reflect Afghan culture and relationships, as demonstrated through the works of Rumi and other literature. There are phonological, lexical, and morphological differences between Afghan Persian and Iranian Persian. For example Afghan Farsi has more vowels than Iranian Farsi. However, there are no significant differences in
7452-687: The war left him determined to be a soldier and gave him a new regard for Pan-Islamism after hearing the stories told by Jordanian , Egyptian , and Syrian soldiers defending their homelands. Massoud refused repeated suggestions to apply for a scholarship to study in France expressing his desire to remain in Afghanistan and apply to the nation's military academy in Kabul . By protest of his father and eldest brother, Massoud enrolled at Kabul Polytechnic Institute , then Kabul University 's newest and most prestigious addition founded, financed, and operated by
7590-463: The ANSF were seen as a factor, along with Afghan police extorting locals, military officers funding themselves by inventing ghost soldiers and the months of unpaid ANSF salaries that followed the April 2021 switch in ANSF salary management to Afghan military administration. Cronyism in ANSF military appointments and president Ashraf Ghani's inability to create an effective national consensus and convince local warlords were also seen as key processes of
7728-467: The ANSF's defeat. Afghans are also more loyal towards their traditional ethnic , tribal and even familial ties than they are to a central government in Kabul, which the provincial Taliban commanders exploited to negotiate surrender of many troops. In the long-term, the American invasion of Iraq and its shifting in focus to that region has also been cited as a reason for the Taliban's resurgence in
7866-485: The Afghan Army in defense, while some former warlords, notably Ismail Khan , were also recruited. Despite this, the Taliban managed to make significant territorial gains in the countryside, increasing the number of districts it controlled from 73 to 223 in the first three months of the offensive. On 6 August, the Taliban launched an assault on the provincial capitals , with most of the towns surrendering without
8004-695: The Afghan Army surrendered to the Taliban while another 31 fled to Pakistan. On 5 July, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon announced the deployment of 20,000 troops on the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border , to prevent a spillover of the war into Tajikistan. On 9 July, the Collective Security Treaty Organization announced that the Russian Federation would deploy 7,000 troops on the border as well, to aid Tajikistan. On 7 July, pro-government forces defeated
8142-415: The Afghan air force command at Bagram had capitulated to Massoud. On March 18, 1992, Najibullah decided to resign. On April 17, as his government fell, he tried to escape but was stopped at Kabul Airport by Dostum's forces. He took refuge at the United Nations mission, where he remained unharmed until 1996, while Massoud controlled the area surrounding the mission. Senior communist generals and officials of
8280-462: The Afghan communist army were mainly defeated by Massoud and his mujahideen in numerous small engagements between 1984 and 1988. After describing the Soviet Union's military engagement in Afghanistan as "a bleeding wound" in 1986, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev began a withdrawal of Soviet troops from the nation in May 1988. On February 15, 1989, in what was depicted as an improbable victory for
8418-473: The Afghan government launched a program called National Mobilization that aimed to arm militia groups to fight the Taliban. Meanwhile, Taliban deputy emir Sirajuddin Haqqani issued a series of instructions on Voice of Jihad for the governance of territories seized in the offensive. FDD's Long War Journal researcher Thomas Joscelyn argued that Haqqani's statements "read like those that would be issued by
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#17327721701368556-417: The Afghan resistance leader most worthy of U.S. support under the Reagan Doctrine . Thousands of foreign Islamic volunteers entered Afghanistan to fight with the mujahideen against the Soviet troops. To organize support for the mujahideen, Massoud established an administrative system that enforced law and order ( nazm ) in areas under his control. The Panjshir was divided into 22 bases ( qarargah ) governed by
8694-455: The Afghanistan Justice Project. Massoud's Jamiat commanders, the interim government, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) repeatedly tried to negotiate ceasefires, which broke down in only a few days. Another militia, the Junbish-i Milli of former communist general Abdul Rashid Dostum , was backed by Uzbekistan . Uzbek president Islam Karimov was keen to see Dostum controlling as much of Afghanistan as possible, especially in
8832-434: The Afghanistan Ministry of Education referring to this group as "South-Eastern" some of the varieties included are in the north. As seen in many Hazaragi varieties, certain Eastern Dialects have developed a system of retroflex consonants under pressure from Pashto. They are not widespread, however. The Kabuli dialect has become the standard model of Dari Persian in Afghanistan, as has the Tehrani dialect in relation to
8970-416: The Hindukush mountains, leaving the Soviet bombings to fall on empty ground and the Soviet battalions to face the mountains. With the defeat of the Soviet-Afghan attacks, Massoud carried out the next phase of his strategic plan, expanding the resistance movement and liberating the northern provinces of Afghanistan. In August 1986, he captured Farkhar in Takhar Province . In November 1986, his forces overran
9108-536: The Ittihad and Wahdat factions. On the one side was the Shia Hazara Hezb-i Wahdat of Abdul Ali Mazari and on the other side, the Sunni Pashtun Ittihad-i Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf . According to Human Rights Watch, Iran was strongly supporting the Hezb-i Wahdat forces, with Iranian intelligence officials providing direct orders, while Saudi Arabia supported Sayyaf and his Ittihad-i Islami faction to maximize Wahhabi influence. Kabul descended into lawlessness and chaos, as described in reports by Human Rights Watch and
9246-433: The Ittihad forces, and that these had not been under Massoud's direct command. Anthony Davis, who studied and observed Massoud's forces from 1981 to 2001, reported that during the observed period, there was "no pattern of repeated killings of enemy civilians or military prisoners" by Massoud's forces. Edward Girardet, who covered Afghanistan for over three decades, was also in Kabul during the war. He states that while Massoud
9384-527: The Ittihad of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf supported by Saudi Arabia, targeted civilians of the 'opposite side' in systematic atrocities. Abdul Rashid Dostum allowed crimes as a perceived payment for his troops. "The major criticism of Massoud's human rights record" is the escalation of the Afshar military operation in 1993. A report by the Afghanistan Justice Project describes Massoud as failing to prevent atrocities carried out by his forces and those of their factional ally, Ittihad-i Islami, against civilians on taking
9522-448: The Najibullah administration acted as a transitional authority to transfer power to Ahmad Shah Massoud's alliance. The Kabul interim authority invited Massoud to enter Kabul as the new Head of State, but he held back. Massoud ordered his forces, positioned to the north of Kabul, not to enter the capital until a political solution was in place. He called on all the senior Afghan party leaders, many then based in exile in Peshawar , to work out
9660-446: The Oxus River region, Afghanistan, and Khorasan after the Arab conquests and during Islamic-Arab rule. The replacement of the Pahlavi script with the Arabic script in order to write the Persian language was done by the Tahirids in 9th century Khorasan. Dari Persian spread and led to the extinction of Eastern Iranian languages like Bactrian and Khwarezmian with only a tiny amount of Sogdian descended Yaghnobi speakers remaining, as
9798-413: The PDPA, with the arrests of senior party members. On April 27, 1978, the PDPA and military units loyal to it killed Daoud Khan , his immediate family, and bodyguards in a violent coup, and seized control of the capital Kabul declaring the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan ( DRA ). The new communist government, led by a revolutionary council, did not enjoy the support of the masses. It implemented
9936-716: The Persian in Iran. Since the 1940s, Radio Afghanistan has broadcast its Dari programs in Kabuli Dari, which ensured the homogenization between the Kabuli version of the language and other dialects of Dari Persian spoken throughout Afghanistan. Since 2003, the media, especially the private radio and television broadcasters , have carried out their Dari programs using the Kabuli variety. The Western group includes various varieties spoken in and around: Herat , Badghis , Farah and Ghor . Varieties in this group share many features with
10074-556: The Persian word dar or darbār ( دربار ), meaning "court", as it was the formal language of the Sassanids . The original meaning of the word dari is given in a notice attributed to Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ (cited by Ibn al-Nadim in Al-Fehrest ). According to him, " Pārsī was the language spoken by priests, scholars, and the like; it is the language of Fars ." This language refers to Middle Persian . As for Dari , he says, "it
10212-815: The Soviet army. This council existed outside the Peshawar parties, which were prone to internecine rivalry and bickering, and served to smooth out differences between resistance groups, due to political and ethnic divisions. It was the predecessor of what could have become a unified Islamic Afghan army. Relations with the party headquarters in Peshawar were often strained, as Rabbani insisted on giving Massoud no more weapons and supplies than to other Jamiat commanders, even those who did little fighting. To compensate for this deficiency, Massoud relied on revenues drawn from exports of emeralds and lapis lazuli , that are traditionally exploited in Northern Afghanistan. Regarding infighting among different mujahideen factions, following
10350-547: The Soviets from taking the Panjshir Valley. In 1992, he signed the Peshawar Accord , a peace and power-sharing agreement, in the post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan . He was appointed the Minister of Defense as well as the government's main military commander. His militia fought to defend Kabul against militias led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and other warlords who were bombing the city, as well as later against
10488-568: The Soviets withdrew, Afghan army garrisons took over their positions. Massoud and his mujahideen forces attacked and recaptured them one by one. In 1983, the Soviets offered Massoud a temporary truce, which he accepted in order to rebuild his own forces and give the civilian population a break from Soviet attacks. He put the respite to good use. In this time he created the Shura-e Nazar (Supervisory Council), which subsequently united 130 commanders from 12 Afghan provinces in their fight against
10626-710: The Taliban captured 15 districts from the Afghan government, including Nirkh and Jalrez districts in Maidan Wardak Province . Among the locations captured was the Dahla Dam in Kandahar Province , Afghanistan's second largest dam. During the month, 405 Afghan National Security Force (ANSF) troops and 260 civilians were killed in clashes, while the Afghan Ministry of Defense claimed to have killed 2,146 Taliban fighters including
10764-555: The Taliban had seized 148 districts from the Afghan government. On 14 July, the Afghan border post at Spin Boldak was captured by the Taliban force; Reuters Indian journalist Danish Siddiqui was killed there while covering the fighting two days later. On 12 July, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow ordered the deployment of troops, heavy weapons, and armour on the Afghanistan–Turkmenistan border , to prevent
10902-732: The Taliban launched an offensive on Ghazni , causing violent clashes within the city. In July, the Taliban captured 64 districts from the Afghan government and entered the second and third largest cities of Afghanistan, Kandahar and Herat respectively. During the month, 335 Afghan National Security Forces and 189 civilians were killed during the clashes with the Taliban, while the Ministry of Defense claimed to have killed 3,159 Taliban fighters. Around 1,500 Afghan soldiers deserted into Tajikistan, according to its Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) envoy. Iranian media reported that around 300 Afghan soldiers and civilians had crossed
11040-475: The Taliban's hand. Also by the time of Taliban's final offensive, most of the Afghan provincial governors had cut deals with the militants to switch sides and join the Taliban. A senior Afghan Interior Ministry official, quoted by the Washington Post, said that Taliban have recruitment teams that reach out to Afghan officials and push them to join the Taliban. He says that Afghan government suspects that
11178-501: The Taliban, have been learning to use firearms in order to defend themselves, with some having already battled the Taliban. Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid denounced the reports as " propaganda " and declared that "women will never pick up guns against us". During the weekend, the Taliban captured nine border posts belonging to the Afghan Army in Kunar Province near the border with Pakistan , during which 39 personnel of
11316-700: The Taliban. On September 9, 2001, Massoud was injured in a suicide bombing by two al-Qaeda assassins, ordered personally by the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden himself; he lost his life while en route to a hospital across the border in Tajikistan. Two days later, the September 11 attacks occurred in the United States, which ultimately led to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invading Afghanistan and allying with Massoud's forces. The Northern Alliance eventually won
11454-625: The UK, Turkey, and the US. On 22 June, the Taliban captured Sher Khan Bandar , Afghanistan's main Tajikistan border crossing, and 13 districts fell to them within 24 hours. On the same day, there was heavy fighting in Baghlan Province when Afghan forces launched an operation on the outskirts of Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital, killing 17 Taliban fighters, including Qari Khalid, a Taliban divisional commander. Simultaneously, Taliban forces took control of Balkh and encircled Mazar-i-Sharif,
11592-592: The ancestors of Tajiks started speaking Dari after relinquishing their original language (most likely Bactrian) around this time, due to the fact that the Arab-Islamic army which invaded Central Asia also included some Persians who governed the region like the Sassanids . Persian was a prestigious high-ranking language and was further rooted into Central Asia by the Samanids. Persian also phased out Sogdian. The role of lingua franca that Sogdian originally played
11730-515: The appearance of [ ɪ ] or [ ɛ ] and native Dari speakers do not perceive them as different phonemes (that is to say, the English words bet [b ɛ t] and bit [b ɪ t] would be nearly indistinguishable to a native Dari speaker). However, speakers in Urban regions of Kabul, Panjšir and other nearby provinces in southern and eastern Afghanistan tend to realize the vowel as [ ɪ ]. Speakers of Dari in central Afghanistan (i.e. Hazaragi speakers) tend to realize
11868-402: The attempted elite settlement did not develop. In April 1992, resistance leaders in Peshawar tried to negotiate a settlement. Massoud supported the Peshawar process of establishing a broad coalition government inclusive of all resistance parties, but Hekmatyar sought to become the sole ruler of Afghanistan, stating, "In our country coalition government is impossible because, this way or another, it
12006-751: The border and entered Iran to escape the Taliban. On 2 July, Germany and Italy withdrew their troops from Afghanistan, and US troops left Bagram Airfield , handing it to the Afghan Armed Forces. Subsequent US airstrikes against the Taliban were led from the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and the US Navy carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf , requiring the warplanes to travel several hours to reach their targets. According to
12144-446: The capacities of the government's army, and a resurgence of factionalism split the regime between Khalq and Parcham supporters. A few days after Najibullah had lost control of the nation, his army commanders and governors arranged to turn over authority to resistance commanders and local warlords throughout the country. Joint councils ( shuras ) were immediately established for local government, in which civil and military officials of
12282-604: The capital of Balkh Province. On 23 June, Taliban and Afghan forces clashed inside Pul-e Khumri. On 25 June, the Taliban took control of the Shinwari District and the Ghorband District in Parwan Province, north of Kabul. That same day NBC News reported that the Taliban "were surprised at the speed of their advance and had avoided capturing some targets so as not to run afoul of the US", and
12420-446: The countryside alone. Due to the repression, large parts of the country, especially the rural areas, organized into open revolt against the PDPA government. By spring 1979, unrest had reached 24 out of 28 Afghan provinces, including major urban areas. Over half of the Afghan army either deserted or joined the insurrection. With religious elders declaring a jihad against the government, in May 1979 Massoud prepared in Peshawar to oppose
12558-958: The dialect of Dari spoken in Western Afghanistan stands in between the Afghan and Iranian Persian. For instance, the Herati dialect shares vocabulary and phonology with both Afghan and Iranian Persian. Likewise, the dialect of Persian in Eastern Iran, for instance in Mashhad , is quite similar to the Herati dialect of Afghanistan. In a paper jointly published by Takhar University and the Ministry of Education in 2018, researchers studying varieties of Persian from Iran to Tajikistan, Identified 3 dialect groups (or macro dialects) present within Afghanistan. In an article about various languages spoken in Afghanistan, Encyclopaedia Iranica identified
12696-510: The dialects of Persian spoken in Eastern Iran, and one may make many comparisons between the speech of Herat and Mashhad . The third group recognized by Afghanistan Ministry of Education is Hazaragi . Spoken by the Hazara people , these varieties are spoken in the majority of central Afghanistan including: Bamyan , parts of Ghazni , Daikundi, Laal Sari Jangal in Ghor province, 'uruzgan khas', in
12834-789: The fifteenth century it appeared in Herat under the Persian-speaking Timurid dynasty . The Persian-language poets of the Mughal Empire who used the Indian verse methods or rhyme methods, like Bedil and Muhammad Iqbal , became familiar with the araki form of poetry. Iqbal loved both styles of literature and poetry, when he wrote: گرچه هندی در عذوبت شکر است Garče Hendī dar uzūbat šakkar ast طرز گفتار دری شیرین تر است tarz-e goftār-e Darī šīrīn tar ast This can be translated as: Even though in euphonious Hindi
12972-416: The former government were usually included. In many cases, prior arrangements for transferring regional and local authority had been made between foes. Collusions between military leaders quickly brought down the Kabul government. In mid-January 1992, within three weeks of the demise of the Soviet Union, Massoud was aware of conflict within the government's northern command. General Abdul Momim , in charge of
13110-450: The government. Hekmatyar's response: We will march into Kabul with our naked sword. No one can stop us. ... Why should we meet the leaders?" Massoud answered: "It seems to me that you don't want to join the leaders in Peshawar nor stop your threat, and you are planning to enter Kabul ... in that case I must defend the people. At that point Osama bin Laden , trying to mediate, urged Hekmatyar to "go back with your brothers" and to accept
13248-498: The ground after an outpost belonging to the Afghan Armed Forces was shelled by the Taliban in the same month. On 16 June, Taliban fighters executed 22 surrendering Afghan Army commandoes in the town of Dawlat Abad . Among the dead was Major Sohrab Azimi, son of retired General Zahir Azimi. He was posthumously promoted to brigadier general. Eyewitnesses said that the language the Taliban fighters spoke among themselves
13386-489: The head of a nation". On 27 June, Chaki Wardak District and Saydabad District fell to the Taliban after at least 50 Afghan troops surrendered and were captured by the Taliban. On the same day Rustaq District , Shortepa District and the Arghistan District fell to the Taliban. ToloNews reported that 108 districts fell to the Taliban in the last two months and the Afghan army had retaken only 10. On 29 June,
13524-468: The headquarters of the government's 20th division at Nahrin in Baghlan Province , scoring an important victory for the resistance. This expansion was also carried out through diplomatic means, as more mujahideen commanders were persuaded to adopt the Panjshir military system. Despite almost constant attacks by the Red Army and the Afghan army, Massoud increased his military strength. Starting in 1980 with
13662-401: The increased number of Persian speakers within Afghanistan. The World Factbook states that about 80% of the Afghan population speaks Dari Persian. About 2.5 million Afghans in Iran and Afghans in Pakistan , part of the wider Afghan diaspora , also speak Dari Persian as one of their primary languages. Dari Persian dominates the northern, western, and central areas of Afghanistan, and
13800-814: The introduction of Persian language into the subcontinent was set, from its earliest days, by various Persianized Central Asian Turkic and Afghan dynasties. The sizable Persian component of the Anglo-Indian loan words in English and in Urdu therefore reflects the Dari Persian pronunciation. For instance, the words dopiaza and pyjama come from the Afghan Persian pronunciation; in Iranian Persian they are pronounced do-piyāzeh and pey-jāmeh . Persian lexemes and certain morphological elements (e.g.,
13938-401: The invaders and overthrowing the communist regime. The first task was to establish a popularly based resistance force that had the loyalty of the people. The second phase was "active defense" of the Panjshir stronghold, while carrying out asymmetric warfare . In the third phase, the "strategic offensive", Massoud's forces would gain control of large parts of Northern Afghanistan. The fourth phase
14076-675: The language of the Achaemenids (550–330 BC). In historical usage, Dari refers to the Middle Persian court language of the Sassanids . Dari is a name given to the New Persian language since the 10th century, widely used in Arabic (compare Al-Estakhri , Al-Muqaddasi and Ibn Hawqal ) and Persian texts. Since 1964, it has been the official name in Afghanistan for the Persian spoken there. In Afghanistan, Dari refers to
14214-449: The latter would henceforth be named Dari. Within their respective linguistic boundaries, Dari Persian and Pashto are the media of education. The term continues to divide opinion in Afghanistan today. While Dari has been the official name for decades, "Farsi" is still the preferred name to many Persian speakers of Afghanistan. Omar Samad , an Afghan analyst and ambassador, says of the dispute: This debate pits those who look at language as
14352-563: The majority of Persian borrowings in several Indo-Aryan languages , such as Urdu , Hindi , Punjabi , Bengali and others, as it was the administrative, official, cultural language of the Persianate Mughal Empire and served as the lingua franca throughout the Indian subcontinent for centuries. Often based in Afghanistan , Turkic Central Asian conquerors brought the language into South Asia. The basis in general for
14490-590: The material collected by the Afghanistan Justice Project, concurs that Massoud's Jamiat forces bear a share of the responsibility for human rights abuses throughout the war, including the indiscriminate targeting of civilians in Afshar, and that Massoud was personally implicated in some of these abuses. Roy Gutman has argued that the witness reports about Afshar cited in the AJP report implicated only
14628-482: The mid to late 2000s. In September 2020, over 5,000 Taliban prisoners, including 400 accused or convicted of major crimes such as murder , were released by the Afghan government as part of the United States–Taliban deal between the United States and the Taliban. According to Afghanistan's National Security Council, many of the released prisoners who were "experts" returned to the battlefield and strengthened
14766-529: The military and political leader of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan or Northern Alliance, which by 2000 controlled only between 5 and 10 percent of the country. In 2001 he visited Europe and urged European Parliament leaders to pressure Pakistan on its support for the Taliban. He also asked for humanitarian aid to combat the Afghan people's gruesome conditions under
14904-611: The military garrison in Rokha , the promised support from Kabul never came and the rebellion was suppressed by Daoud Khan 's forces sending Massoud back into Pakistan (after a day hiding in Jangalak) where he would attend a secret, paramilitary ISI training center in Cherat . Dissatisfied, Massoud left the center and returned to Peshawar where he committed himself to personal military studies . Massoud read Mao Tse-tung's writings on
15042-667: The more moderate forces around Massoud and Rabbani , who led the Jamiat-i Islami , and more radical Islamist elements surrounding Gulbuddin Hekmatyar , who founded the Hezb-i Islami . The conflict reached such a point that Hekmatyar reportedly tried to kill Massoud, then 22 years old. The government of Mohammed Daoud Khan tried to scale back the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan 's influence, dismissing PDPA members from their government posts, appointing conservatives to replace them, and finally dissolved
15180-545: The mujahideen, the last Soviet soldier left the nation. After the departure of Soviet troops in 1989, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan regime, then headed by Mohammad Najibullah , held its own against the mujahideen. Backed by a massive influx of weapons from the Soviet Union, the Afghan armed forces reached a level of performance they had never reached under direct Soviet tutelage. They maintained control over all of Afghanistan's major cities. During late 1990, helped by hundreds of mujahideen forces, Massoud targeted
15318-592: The new communist government in Panjshir . Along with twenty-four of his friends, Massoud took a bus to Bajaur and, with arms-smuggling Pashtun tribesmen, marched on foot into the Panjshir Valley . Massoud's group seized control over a number of government outposts in the Valley , entered the Shomali Plain to capture Gulbahar , and cut off the Salang Highway , the main supply route between Kabul and
15456-452: The north. Dostum repeatedly changed allegiances. The Afghanistan Justice Project (AJP) says, that "while [Hekmatyar's anti-government] Hizb-i Islami is frequently named as foremost among the factions responsible for the deaths and destruction in the bombardment of Kabul, it was not the only perpetrator of these violations." According to the AJP, "the scale of the bombardment and kinds of weapons used represented disproportionate use of force" in
15594-567: The parrots of India will crack sugar Through this Persian Candy which is going to Bengal Here qand-e Pārsī (" Rock candy of Persia") is a metaphor for the Persian language and poetry. Persian replaced the Central Asian languages of the Eastern Iranics. Ferghana, Samarkand, and Bukhara were starting to be linguistically Darified in originally Khorezmian and Soghdian areas during Samanid rule. Dari Persian spread around
15732-926: The position of prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar refused to recognize the peace and power-sharing agreement. His Hezb-e Islami militia initiated a massive bombardment campaign against the Islamic State and the capital city Kabul. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar received operational, financial and military support from neighboring Pakistan . The Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University , Amin Saikal , writes in Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival that without Pakistan's support, Hekmatyar "would not have been able to target and destroy half of Kabul." Saikal states that Pakistan wanted to install
15870-505: The post-Sassanid period, and the New era being the period afterward down to the present day. The first person in Europe to use the term Deri for Dari may have been Thomas Hyde in his chief work, Historia religionis veterum Persarum (1700). Dari or Deri has two meanings. It may mean the language of the court: It may also indicate a form of poetry used from Rudaki to Jami . In
16008-598: The preferred literary and administrative language among non-native speakers, such as the Turco-Mongol peoples including the Mughals , for centuries before the rise of modern nationalism. Also, like Iranian Persian and Tajiki Persian , Dari Persian is a continuation of Middle Persian , the official religious and literary language of the Sassanian Empire (224–651 AD), itself a continuation of Old Persian ,
16146-461: The professor Burhanuddin Rabbani . Kabul University was a center for political debate and activism during that time. Infuriated by the arrogance of his communist peers and Russian professors, a physical altercation between Massoud and his Russian professor led Massoud to walk out of the university, and shortly after, Kabul . Two days later, Massoud and a number of fellow militant students traveled to Pakistan where, goaded by another trainee of
16284-558: The provincial council, also surrendered to the Taliban on the same day. On 10 July, the Taliban captured Panjwayi District in Kandahar Province and surrounded the city of Ghazni in central Afghanistan. The border crossings of Torghundi with Turkmenistan and Islam Qala with Iran were captured by the Taliban. During the capture of the Islam Qala border crossing, some Afghan security and customs officials fled across
16422-524: The resistance movement against the forces of Daoud Khan . Massoud's father, Dost Mohammad, was a colonel in the Royal Afghan Army; his mother, Bibi Khorshaid has been described as a "modern-minded" woman who taught herself to read and write determined to educate her daughters no less than her sons. Moving along with his father's postings, the adolescent Massoud attended primary school in Afghanistan 's western city of Herat before his father
16560-409: The suburb of Afshar during a military operation against an anti-state militia allied to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. They shelled residential areas in the capital city in February 1993. Critics said that Massoud should have foreseen these problems. A meeting convened by Massoud on the next day ordered a halt to killing and looting, but it failed to stop abuses. Human Rights Watch , in a report based largely on
16698-651: The time of the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526), even as those governments were dominated by Pashtun people. Sher Ali Khan of the Barakzai dynasty (1826–1973) first introduced the Pashto language as an additional language of administration. The local name for the Persian variety spoken in Afghanistan was officially changed from Farsi to Dari, meaning "court language", in 1964. Zaher said there would be, as there are now, two official languages, Pashto and Farsi, though
16836-414: The two share many phonological and lexical similarities. Apart from a few basics of vocabulary, there is little difference between formal written Persian of Afghanistan and Iran ; the languages are mutually intelligible. Dari Persian is the official language for approximately 35 million people in Afghanistan and it serves as the common language for inter-ethnic communication in the country. As defined in
16974-468: The two-month-long war in December 2001, removing the Taliban from power. Massoud has been described as one of the greatest guerrilla leaders of the 20th century and has been compared to Josip Broz Tito , Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara . Massoud was posthumously named "National Hero" by the order of President Hamid Karzai after the Taliban were ousted from power. The date of Massoud's death, September 9,
17112-576: The vowel diacritic "pesh" ( Kasrah ) was romanized with an "i" for South-Eastern dialects but as an "e" for western dialects. This is presumably due to a difference in quality, however the paper itself did not explain why the vowels were transliterated differently. The South Eastern group (also referred to the Southern and Eastern group) constitutes varieties spoken in and around Kabul , Parwan , Balkh , Baghlan , Samangan , Kunduz , Takhar , Badakhshan and others. A distinctive character of this group
17250-494: The vowel in proximity to, or identically to, [ i ], unless the following syllable contains a high-back vowel. Speakers in western Afghanistan (such as in the Herat or Farah province) and some rural regions in the Kabul province (not the city) most commonly realize the vowel as [ ɛ ]. Additionally, in some varieties of Dari, the phoneme [ ɛ ] appears as an allophone of [a]. Successive governments of Afghanistan have promoted New Persian as an official language of government since
17388-497: The word to the parties so they should decide about the country as a whole. We talked about it for a temporary stage and then after that the ground should be prepared for a general election. A recorded radio communication between the two leaders showed the divide as Massoud asked Hekmatyar: The Kabul regime is ready to surrender, so instead of the fighting we should gather. ... The leaders are meeting in Peshawar. ... The troops should not enter Kabul, they should enter later on as part of
17526-641: The written forms, other than regional idiomatic phrases. The phonology of Dari Persian as spoken in Kabul, compared with Classical Persian, is overall more conservative than the accent of Iran's standard register. In this regard Dari Persian is more similar to Tajiki Persian. The principal differences between standard Iranian Persian and Afghan Persian as based on the Kabul dialect are: The dialects of Dari spoken in Northern, Central, and Eastern Afghanistan, for example in Kabul , Mazar , and Badakhshan , have distinct features compared to Iranian Persian . However,
17664-502: Was a military offensive by the Taliban insurgent group and allied militants that led to the fall of the Kabul -based Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the end of the nearly 20-year War in Afghanistan that had begun following the United States invasion of the country . The Taliban victory had widespread domestic and international ramifications regarding human rights and proliferation of terrorism . The offensive included
17802-618: Was able to control most of his commanders well during the anti-Soviet and anti-Taliban resistance, he was not able to control every commander in Kabul. According to this and similar testimonies, this was due to a breakdown of law and order in Kabul and a war on multiple fronts, which they say, Massoud personally had done all in his power to prevent: Dari Dari ( / ˈ d ɑː r i , ˈ d æ -/ ; endonym : دری [d̪ɐˈɾiː] ), Dari Persian ( فارسی دری , Fārsī-yi Darī , [fʌːɾˈsiːjɪ d̪ɐˈɾiː] or Fārsī-ye Darī , [fʌːɾˈsiːjɛ d̪ɐˈɾiː] ), or Eastern Persian
17940-470: Was born in 1953 in the small village of Jangalak, Bazarak in the Panjshir Valley (now administered as part of the Panjshir Province), to a well-to-do family native to the Panjshir Valley . Massoud's name at birth was 'Ahmad Shah' after King Ahamad Shah Durrani , founder of the modern, unified state of Afghanistan , later taking the name 'Massoud' as a nom de guerre in 1974 when he joined
18078-411: Was charged with the training of the military and administrative cadre . A culture committee and a judiciary committee were also created. This expansion prompted Babrak Karmal to demand that the Red Army resume their offensives, in order to crush the Panjshir groups. Massoud received warning of the attack through Britain's GCHQ intelligence and he evacuated all 130,000 inhabitants from the valley into
18216-568: Was dispatched to Kabul . There, Massoud was sent to the renowned Franco - Afghan Lycée Esteqlal ( lit . Independence High School) where he attained his proficiency in French . Massoud's experience at Lycée would be formative and, as he would later remark, was the happiest period of his life. At Lycée his classes were taught by French and Afghan tutors educated in France and the students donned Western jackets , neckties , trousers , skirts , scarves , and stockings . Although his knowledge of
18354-553: Was foreign, indicating that the fighters were not from the area. During the month, 703 Afghan National Security Forces and 208 civilians were killed in clashes, while the Ministry of Defense claimed to have killed 1,535 Taliban fighters. On 19 June, President Ashraf Ghani replaced the Afghan National Army chief of staff, and the defense and interior ministers. By the end of June, all Resolute Support Mission 's member countries had withdrawn their troops, except for
18492-471: Was help with organisation and communication via radio equipment which was highly useful for Massoud to coordinate his forces and be warned of any impending Soviet attacks. The United States provided him with comparatively less support than other factions. Part of the reason was that it permitted its funding and arms distribution to be administered by Pakistan, which favored the rival mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar . In an interview, Massoud said, "We thought
18630-537: Was observed as a national holiday known as "Massoud Day" until the Taliban takeover in August 2021. His followers call him Amer Sāhib-e Shahīd ( آمر صاحب شهید ), which translates to "(our) martyred commander". A street in New Delhi was named after him in 2007. He has been posthumously honored by a plaque in France in 2021, and in the same year was awarded with the highest honor of Tajikistan . Ahmad Shah Massoud
18768-703: Was spoken during the rule of the Sassanid dynasty . In general, Iranian languages are known from three periods, usually referred to as Old, Middle, and New (Modern) periods. These correspond to three eras in Iranian history, the old era being the period from some time before, during, and after the Achaemenid period (that is, to 300 BC), the Middle Era being the next period, namely, the Sassanid period and part of
18906-677: Was succeeded by Persian after the arrival of Islam. Dari Persian is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan. In practice though, it serves as the de facto lingua franca among the various ethnolinguistic groups. Dari Persian is spoken by approximately 25-80% of the population of Afghanistan . Tajiks , who comprise 27-39% of the population , are the primary native speakers, followed by Hazaras (9%) and Aymāqs (4%). Moreover, while Pashtuns (48%) natively speak Pashto , those living in Tajik and Hazara dominated areas also use Dari Persian as their main or secondary language. Thus, non-native Persian speaking groups have contributed to
19044-438: Was the "general application" of Massoud's principles to the whole country, and the defeat of the Afghan communist government. Massoud's mujahideen attacked the occupying Soviet forces, ambushing Soviet and Afghan communist convoys travelling through the Salang Pass , and causing fuel shortages in Kabul. The Soviets mounted a series of offensives against the Panjshir. Between 1980 and 1985, these offensives were conducted twice
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