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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Failed verification

The statement "Courts started to work again also convicting individuals inside government troops who had committed crimes" is sourced to this youtube video: [1]. Verification failed. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

A replacement source is required. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

More problems

  • [2] (footnotes 120/121), youtube video, dead link. Whole passage can be removed; we don't need descriptions of individual tv features that cover Massoud.
  • [3] (footnote 97): an opinion piece, speech by a US politician; not a reliable source. Used for several statements of fact in the article.
    • Passage Two top foreign policy officials in the Clinton administration flew to northern Afghanistan to convince - without success - the United Front not to take advantage of an opportunity to make crucial gains against the Taliban.[97] Before the United Front could strike, Assistant Secretary of State Rick Indefurth and American U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson flew to northern Afghanistan and tried to convince the leadership of the United Front that this was not the time for an offensive is heavily redundant,
    • Passage At the same time Pakistanis began a "Berlin-like airlift to resupply and re-equip the Taliban", financed with Saudi money (same footnote) is a politically sensitive claim of fact, presented as a fact, sourced to the same opinion piece
    • Passage she had realized that this was a one-dimensional view of Afghanistan and there were gaping holes in the DOD's understanding of the situation: another politically sensitive claim of fact; same situation. Also plagiarized wording.
    This whole piece by Rohrabacher is given far exaggerated weight in the article.
  • [4] (footnote 87), "Proposal for peace": dead link; obviously was a non-reliable self-published source

Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Coatrack material

Many of the history sections contain very extensive material unrelated to Massoud, essentially amounting to a fork of a History of Afghanistan article. This goes most obviously for the sections on Hekmatyar and on the Taliban, but also for the section about the pre-1979 socialist government. The only function of these sections appear to be to make Massoud's opponents look bad so as to make him shine the more in comparison. All of this needs to be reduced drastically. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:08, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Stop it!

Are you still ok, FP? One editor agreed with you on one issue, a majority of editors disagreed with you on another issue. Big deal, now what? Will you finally stop opening up walls of sections for every single sentence?! And FYI, there are a lot of things in that article not written by me.

Regarding some of the things mentioned in above wall of sections:

Webster University Press is a reliable source, the information used for the article from the book were provided by reliable experts. The book has accounts of high profile journalists, diplomats, and others, the author didn't write about the matter herself, she collected the accounts.

As for pre-1979. The section is very informative and reliably, academically sourced. Most people will understand that things are interdependent in history and Massoud's relation and difficulties with Hekmatyar or later the Taliban are an integral part of any bio or article about Massoud.

This specific HRW report was surrounded by a controversy regarding Massoud. That is why it was left out as the source for the matter. HRW used specific sources to implicate factions in abuses but did not cite the very same sources when they cleared specific persons i. e. Massoud. Btw, HRW put the blame for Afshar mostly on Ittihad, which hasn't been written in the article either.

U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher is a very useful and reliable source on Afghanistan-related issues. He is repeatedly cited by the media as an expert on Afghanistan-related topics. He spent years in Afghanistan himself and he holds a central position as a Chairman in the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US Congress.

JCAla (talk) 13:00, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

A majority of 2 is no majority at all. Also, Darkness Shines' posts above as User:Nihil Novi Sub Sole aren't a blatant violation of WP:SOCK since the account is declared as Darkness Shines' sockpuppet, but posting to this page under two user names without declaring so explicitly here is likely to confuse outside observers, and is at best unhelpful.
I doubt that JCAla truly misunderstands the point that Fut. Perf. has made about Marcela Grad's book: it passes WP:RS, but it's very sympathetic towards Massoud, and over-reliance on this source has led to a non-neutral article.
It's silly to first complain that an editor doesn't discuss things, and then complain when he discusses things extensively. I don't see much willingness on the part of Darkness or JCAla to address Fut. Perf.'s points, and this is the source of both Fut. Perf.'s impatience and the lack of progress on this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 13:22, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
A) I just addressed many of FP's points above.
B) I don't think FP needs a lawyer.
C) With "majority" I wasn't referring to this specific discussion about Massoud, I was referring to a previous, different discussion about Massoud as FP seems to perceive his inputs to be the ultimate truth. Obviously, they are not as can be seen by the example of the Rome Process discussion.
D) With regards to the Webster University Press book, you may wanna read again what your friend wrote:
""Webster University Press" is not an established academic outlet of any standing, despite its name. [...] The author apparently has no particular qualification in history of political sciences (she's described as a "writer and translator") and no other publishing record in the field; her book is described as an "oral history of Massoud", essentially a compilation of "stories" collected from people around him. This is definitely not the kind of work we can base our article on."
And now read again my answer. I explained that Marcela Grad is not the one who wrote about the matter in the book, but that she collected accounts of highly professional journalists and diplomats and others -- which mostly are the accounts that have been used in the article. As such the source is very useful despite it meeting WP:RS anyway -- no matter if it is perceived as sympathetic or not to Massoud in subjective perception.
E) The lack of progress on the article is due to FP being completely unable to accept that there are different and valid (!) opinions other than his own. I have rewritten several sections among them "Early life" and sourced them reliably -- this was the only progress the article saw.
JCAla (talk) 13:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)


Just to make it clear what we are talking about. Among those whose accounts are in the Webster University Press book are:
  • Michael A. Barry (Professor at Princeton University),
  • Roger L. Plunk (George Washington University, international mediator),
  • Jean-José Puig (fmr. French Foreign Affairs, Centre d'Analyse),
  • Hiromi Nagakura (award-winning photographer),
  • Richard Mackenzie (Emmy Award-winning journalist for Afghanistan documentary, war correspondent, author and analyst),
  • Sebastian Junger (Oscar-nominated documentary journalist),
  • John Jennings (AP correspondent in Kabul 1991-1994),
  • Chris Hooke (BBC),
  • Sandy Gall (BBC, ITN journalist and author),
  • Pepe Escobar (Asia Times),
  • Reza Deghati (award-winning photographer and UNESCO ambassador),
  • Anthony Davis (journalist among others for the Washington Post, Time Magazine, ...),
  • Edward Girardet (Director Global Journalism Network, award-winning author on Afghanistan)
JCAla (talk) 14:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Which makes the book just a collection of opinion pieces in a non-peer-reviewed source. Unsuitable. Plus, it's yet another case of source falsification on your part, because so far you have presented all of the refs to this book as if they were to Grad's own work. Now you're saying it isn't really her work? Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Those are very high-standard authors and very suitable. If only wikipedia had such sourcing on all articles, that would be grand quality. I have presented all those refs as "Webster University Press book" and certainly I don't have any more time for your "source falsification" accusations. Why would I want to make it look like as if a statement by a highly reliable author such as Michael A. Barry was Marcela Grad's statement? Do you have nothing else to do than throw around accusations and hound people to articles you never cared for in the past? JCAla (talk) 14:28, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I haven't read Grad's book and don't have access to a copy but it looks to me like she interviewed the people listed and wrote a biography (with extensive direct quotes from the interviewees). So the book is her work, it's not as if it's an edited collection or the people listed are her coauthors. --Akhilleus (talk) 19:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
I have the book and read it. In the book Grad lists information provided to her by the above authors/journalists/etc. and known Afghans. She herself does not write on the issues except for the general introduction, small introductions at the beginning of each chapter which deal with a specific topic/theme and the epilogue. She also put a heading above every information provided by others i. e. "Massoud and Hekmatyar - text by expert - name of expert". This way she collected hundreds of interviews, many experts are cited several times on different issues/in different chapters. Her main and valuable work on the book is basically having collected and put together all this extensive information. As such the book is her work but the information in the book is provided by the named experts or others who know about the issues. JCAla (talk) 20:15, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Better source

There's a simple solution to the problem of the unreliable main source (Grad) described above. JCAla himself mentioned Michael A. Barry, as one of the witnesses contributing to Grad's book. Now, Barry is himself the author of his own book-length biography of Massoud, which so far we have used only for one footnote (which has been in place since before JCAla edited the article). Unlike Grad's book, Barry's WP:RS status would appear to be impeccable. He, too, is apparently highly sympathetic to Massoud, so we must take care not to take any political evaluations from it as gospel truth, but there's also not much danger it would skew the article too far in the other direction.

We have the book at my local library. It's in French, which I read with a bit of effort, so I'd be willing to get it and rework the basic factual biographic outline of the article on that basis. This should make Grad pretty much superfluous.

But if I'm to do that, I want to do it in a reasonable working environment. No protection; no passing each edit through the gauntlet of filibustering here on talk in advance; no kneejerk blanket reverts. B-D-R, not B-R-D. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:14, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Grad's collection (Webster University Press) is a reliable source. There is no need to replace it. It won't become superfluos, probably facts will just be further confirmed. There is certainly no reason not to work Barry's book into the article also. I am confident it will be a plus for the article. In any way, wikipedia is a collaborative effort and it is not for a single editor -- like you -- to "own" and decide on the article alone. I have been working on improving this article and I will keep doing so. I and maybe others who wanna join too will have a look at Barry's book and see what can be worked into the article. There is no such thing as, "I read the book and rewrite but nobody can object to my version by means of revert" or what you perceive as invalid opinions on the talk. If we can all assume good faith we may be able to work in a collaborative effort on this article. JCAla (talk) 17:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Nominated for Nobel peace prize

I propose to remove the following sentence from the lead: "In 2002, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize." While true, simply being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize is not especially noteworthy. For example, Adolf Hitler has been nominated.[5] Gabbe (talk) 18:44, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler's nomination was withdrawn and it was by one outlandish Swedish parliamentarian. Massoud's nomination was not withdrawn and he was nominated by dozens of respected groups. JCAla (talk) 18:48, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

This is not notable enough for the lead, but it could be mentioned further down in the "legacy" section. I have seen hardly any reliable source that really discusses this episode, especially the problematic aspect that the nomination (being posthumous) was explicitly contrary to the Nobel foundation's rules, and as such without a chance. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

The nominators argued that the committee once made an exception for one person, and that after 9/11 - Massoud representing the opposite of Bin Laden while being a Muslim - the same exception should be made for Massoud. JCAla (talk) 19:11, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
But is it notable enough for the lead? If you're nominated for the Academy Awards, for example, or for a Pulitzer, you are among a handful of finalists. By contrast, hundreds of people are nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize every year. Gabbe (talk) 19:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Do we have any reliably sourced information (i.e., not Grad) about who was actually responsible for the nomination? What initiative was that, how were they organized, who took part? Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes I would have to support this, after all so many Afghan leaders get nominated right? So ya, not even a notable mention in this guys life. </sarc>Darkness Shines (talk) 20:45, 28 September 2012 (UTC)
It is most notable including for the lead. I don't think Grad has the names of the nominators in her great and informativ book - that wonderful reliable source. I have read about the nominators but I will have to go and search where that was. Among them, I think, were notables such as Bernard-Henri Lévy. (He was the main force to convince Sarkozy and as a consequence the United Nations to intervene in Libya arguing that the West should not make the same mistake as it made by not backing Ahmad Shah Massoud and asking Sarkozy: "Will the president meet 'the Libyan Massoud'"?[6] He also wrote extensively about Massoud.[7][8]) Among the nominators was also Phillipe Morillon. In total it were 2,000 people, very prominent ones as the two mentioned and private citizens also. JCAla (talk) 10:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
Private citizens cannot make nobel prize nominations. We will have to distinguish between those who were actually responsible for signing and submitting the nomination, and those who merely signed some public petition or something of the sort. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:22, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

More issues

  • In the "Warning the west" section, the sentence On this visit to Europe he also warned that his intelligence had gathered information about a large-scale attack on U.S. soil being imminent is sourced to this CNN article, which does not contain this information.
  • Footnote 119, used to source the sentence he issued the warning that [...] the problems of Afghanistan would soon become the problems of the U.S. and the world. Link goes to this primary source, an internal memo from some US agency, with most content blacked out. I can't find anything in there that is related to the issue at hand, or even related to Massoud.
  • More potential for abridgment: in the section on "Investigative commission", there is no need for all those details about the guy the camera was stolen from (his name, who he was, what he was doing when he got robbed, etc.) This is just a random guy who is totally unrelated to the whole case – it's like cars getting stolen and then used in a crime; it happens every day and nobody would ever dream about dragging the names and biographic details of their owners into a report about the crime itself.
  • Footnote 114: website http://ahmadshahmassoud.com/modules.php?name=Pages&pa=showpage&pid=74 is broken (and not a reliable source anyway).

Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Just checking the first two points that are mentioned above - these need to be re-sourced, re-written or removed. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Nah, the sentence, [...] he issued the warning that [...] the problems of Afghanistan would soon become the problems of the U.S. and the world is foremost sourced to a video of Massoud in the European parliament (Footnote 82). The follow up part of that video contains the sequence in which Massoud issues the warning. However, National Geographic's documentary "Afghanistan Revealed" (which won an Emmy Award) offers even better sourcing for that and several other warnings: original video posted by National Geographic & video for those fellows outside the US
The same source btw, also contains interesting insights on Massoud's stance towards women's rights. He regularly employed skilled women in his areas which had fled Taliban areas. An example of a nurse is given in the documentary.[9] Such information isn't yet in the article, needs to be added.
  • Now, I didn't check the DIA link for years. Probably the article - like many others - needs checks if the links still work. Either they changed the address path for the document from the short cut "tal32" to "tal31" or someone mixed up the reference. In any case the document is available here. With some research you could have find out easily, FP. The document is represented in the "warning the world" part through this text: "Declassified Defense Intelligence Agency documents from November 2001 show that Massoud had gained "limited knowledge... regarding the intentions of [al-Qaeda] to perform a terrorist act against the US on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania." They also point out that he warned about such attacks."
Am going to change these things and have a look at some other issues later on. JCAla (talk) 09:58, 30 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Footnote 114 works, but not with Firefox. In any case, it is just a service to the reader to be able to read for himself the excerpt of Michael Barry's "Thoughts on Commander Massoud". We could also have had as a Footnote just "Michael A. Barry, Thoughts on Commander Massoud". JCAla (talk) 10:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Unprotecting

Right I am going to unprotect now and advise the following:

  • Material clearly failing policy (i.e. referenced with a source that does not contain the material) and clearly unreliable sources should be removed. Rather than reverting, it can be rewritten and readded with better sources if those can be found.

Nom de guerre?

This [10] source, and a few others I've seen, suggest that "Massoud" wasn't actually his original name but a "nom de guerre". Can this be confirmed, and do we know what his original birth name was? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:01, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The former Afghan ambassador to France, Mehraboudin Masstan, provided many details about Massoud's family background in the great Webster University book. The family came to Panjshir from Samarkand around 1780. One of Massoud's ancestors was decorated twice for rendering important services to the kingdom of King Timur Shah. Another ancestor was one of the Panjshir's most significant people in the past because he was considered a leader in the war against the British during the Anglo-Afghan wars. Massoud's mother was named Khurshaid ("sun") and his father was Dost Mohammad. Massoud was simply born as "Ahmad Shah" as most Afghans don't have surnames, see i. e. Abdullah Abdullah who simply born as "Abdullah" son of ... Massoud took the surname Massoud as "nom de guerre" and the name has since become his whole family's surname. JCAla (talk) 09:20, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Revert

I have reverted this edit by JCAla, for several reasons: first, the bibliographic information is wrong. Jennings and Hussain are not the authors of that book, "Afghanistan and 9/11: The Anatomy of a Conflict" is not its title, and "pp.256" is not the page reference to the information in question. Given this sloppiness, I cannot verify what is actually said in that book and where. Second, the edit was worded in such a way as to imply that these were actually two counter-statements, with two footnotes, when it's essentially just a single argument by a single observer. This fits in with JCAla's well-known tendency of trying to bury viewpoints he doesn't like through the sheer quantity of the blown-up coverage of his favourite viewpoints. Third, Jennings is already covered with essentially the same argument (cited to the Grad book) two sentences further down, thus boiling down to giving his argument three-fold coverage. These tactics of tendentious editing need to stop. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The bibliographic information is right. As provided in the ref info, "John Jennings, Rifaat Hussain et al" are the authors of the book, "Afghanistan and 9/11: The Anatomy of a Conflict" is its title.[11] In order not to repeat Jennings, I shortened the subsequent paragraph.[12] The last "reason" mentioned is completely ridiculous. I ask you to self-rv as you have again bullied and blanket-reverted reliable, notable information. If you add an argument, there needs to be room for the counter-argument.JCAla (talk) 21:19, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
You don't know how to cite books. This is a collected volume. It must be cited with its editor, Anand Giridharadas et al.. Then, the title is the other way round, "The anatomy of a conflict : Afghanistan and 9/11". John Jennings is the author of one chapter in this collection. Here's a free lesson in academic writing 101. Such things are cited like: Author: chapter title. In: Book title, ed. Editor. Oh, and don't forget the page numbers – both those of the beginning and end of the chapter in question, and that of the specific claim being cited. – Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
In this case JCAla seems to be relying on the title given on the amazon.co.uk page and the rest of the author info given there. I wonder if this is an indication that he's relying on slapdash online research without reading the physical books he's trying to cite? --Akhilleus (talk) 03:27, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to revert this one too. As has been pointed out repeatedly to JCAla, both Coll and Tomson are talking about a "Tajik-Pashtun alliance" not in the sense of an alliance that actually happened on the ground, but merely as a plan that they thought might materialize (Coll is basically just paraphrasing Tomson here). With this edit, JCAla is again, like several times before, trying to pass this off as a lot more than it is, giving it far exaggerated weight. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Lion of Panjshir

I see there is some real "hot" discussion here. So I propose a "lighter" issue for discussion on the side. As the article says, A.Sh.M. is known as the "Lion of Panjshir". People who contribute to this article certainly know that "Panjshir" means "five lions" but I doubt most readers of WP will know that. The fact that Massoud has been called "Lion of" is also, I believe, attributable to the place called "Five Lions". Should we not add something in the article about this? (If it was discussed before, sorry, I confess I never enter the archives because I have a strong dust allegy...) --E4024 (talk) 10:59, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. It's already covered in the #Lion of Panjshir section. (That's what comes from having an article so absurdly over-long and blown up with coatrack fluff – people no longer read the whole thing and fail to find important things that are actually there.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, the article went so much down?! I thought I head read half of it; but now that I checked again I see I have not read more than a third. (Well, but still it is not worse than the Armenians in Cyprus article where there are pages of detailed information and one pic for each Armenian Cypriot). Maybe we should create a barnstar for people who read completely such lengthy articles like the present one. --E4024 (talk) 11:14, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Better sources

I recommend using Gilles Dorronsoro's REVOLUTION UNENDING Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present, well reviewed in WaPo. Here are some useful excerpts from pp. 127-128 (but there's more on Massoud in the book, I'm not going to copy it all here):


The two footnotes 59-60 are also of interest:


Hope this helps with the more obscure points of his bio. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:04, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, thank you. One more source, is in some contrast to other academically published sources though. I have used multiple academic and otherwise first-class sources in the article besides the Webster source. So, we gotta attribute. It is interesting though that Dorronsoro issues the recommendation to read Jean-José Puig, given that an account by the man is already in the article - that is if it was not removed in Fut.Perf.'s mass removal of content. JCAla (talk) 14:48, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Bootheel Publishing book

I see a good number of citations are from " Vollmer, Susan (2007). Legends, Leaders, Legacies. Bootheel Publishing." The ISBN 978-0979523311 for that book is not working in WorldCat. No page numbers are given for the citations either. Questionable source. Tijfo098 (talk) 14:29, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

What are you even talking about?[13][14] JCAla (talk) 14:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
The book exists, but it is essentially self-published ("Bootheel Publishing LLC" seems to have only published this single volume and has no academic record whatsoever). Judging from what I see on Googlebooks, it's clearly a low-quality work by an author without any academic or professional standing on this topic. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Well, the book isn't used for controversial information. Just for his birth date, schools and employment of his father. Funnily enough, Vollmer a normal journalist manages to get the birth date of Massoud correctly, 1953, while above proposed "better source" by Tijfo puts it at 1956. What a fitting caricature of this whole theatre. JCAla (talk) 15:17, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
On the other hand, Vollmer (according to the citation currently in the article, which I cannot check against her book right now) gives his exact birthdate as 2 September, while Barry (p.56) says his exact birthdate wasn't registered and Massoud himself never knew it. Which is correct? Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:33, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Actually... does Vollmer in fact have that date? The only thing I can see her saying in the book (p.299) is that he was born "in the 1950s" (no year given, neither 1953 nor 1956); however, the first page of her chapter on Massoud is not online for me.) The "2 September" claim seems to have been in the article long before any citations to Vollmer were added to it – did you add the footnote to a piece of information that wasn't actually covered by it? Actually I cannot find any confirmation of the "2 September" anywhere else in a Google-Books search either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict) At the end of 2006 the Wikipeida article was already listing that 1953 date [15]. It's not at all unlikely that this self-published book is a case of WP:CIRCULAR referencing. Vollmer's book cites no references for any of its entries! And it's not at all from an expert on Afghanistan. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Even more ominous, searching for 1953 in that book yields no hits in the page range covering Massoud. It seems to be an outright source misrepresentation. Tijfo098 (talk) 15:55, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
There was some really chaotic editing in 2006. This [16] old version gives the date as both "9 January" and "9 July" simultaneously! This [17] (unreliable) source has 1 September, not 2 September. I think it will probably be safest to stick with Barry and just omit the date. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
Oh, and Girardet [18] also has 1 September. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:03, 3 October 2012 (UTC)
I completely agree with citing both Barry and Girardet on this. Both are the most reliable of all the five sources mentioned. JCAla (talk) 17:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Details of the assassination

There is some problem about what exactly happened to the assassin who survived the blast. The article currently says, without an explicit citation, that he was first "captured" and then, presumably later, shot dead while trying to escape. Le Monde [19] doesn't mention a capture, but describes his shooting as happening when he tried to "jump out of the window", i.e. presumably the window of the room where the attack took place, implying that it was immediately after the explosion. Which is it?

Oh, and the article is also not quite clear about treating the conflicting contemporary reports about the exact time of Massoud's own death. The article says, seemingly as an uncontested fact, that he died during the transfer in the helicopter. The source that's being cited actually says something else, that he died in the hospital. Other sources, IIRC, have said that he must have been dead on the spot. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

The documentary "Who killed Massoud" has dealt with the issue. Re the first issue, the second assassin was captured and then shot while trying to escape. Re the second issue, Massoud died during the helicopter flight.[20] This is also according to the man who was with him and must now. Looking for the publisher of the documentary. JCAla (talk) 17:16, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

City had been "desecrated" by the militias?

"His militia fought to siege the capital against different militias led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Abdul Ali Mazari, Abdul Rashid Dostum and eventually the Taliban, who started to lay siege to the capital in January 1995 after the city had been desecrated by the aforementioned militias and his;"
What does that mean? Desecrated how? Kabul was deprived of its sacred character? How? Since when is Kabul a sacred city? To whom? How?--31.176.202.244 (talk) 10:07, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I have removed [21] from the "connection to 9/11" section the two anecdotal accounts about people claimed (or claiming about themselves) to have had premonitions, already during the two days between Massoud's death and 9/11, that the former was somehow a sign foreshadowing the imminent danger. The topic of this section is what can be objectively known, in historical hindsight, about what the actual link between the two events was (and, no doubt, enough about this connection has been written to make that an interesting section.) Whether some individuals had that clairvoyant-like political astuteness to actually predict such a link before the event might have some interest as a curiosity footnote, but it's not really relevant to the topic as such and only serves to divert attention from the main topic of the section. Besides, it is also impossible to verify: Rohrabacher is merely claiming this about himself, and as for the story about John O'Neill [22], the source actually does not mention Massoud at all. It merely says that on 9/10 O'Neill talked about premonitions about an imminent attack, based on some vaguely described "way things are lining up" in Afghanistan, but that appears to be referring to a more general development, not to one specific event that had happened just the day before. Neither does the witness claim that O'Neill himself mentioned the Massoud assassination during that talk in the pub, nor does the author of the reportage suggest that O'Neill would have been thinking primarily about that. The name Massoud doesn't even occur anywhere in the whole piece. The editorializing addition that he was "[referring to the assassination of Massoud]" is apparently purely OR. It was added together with the whole story on 25 August 2010 by JCAla [23]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Reverted aforementioned edits, as Putin regarded Massoud's assassination a warning sign and expressed his concern to Bush: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve1eV2AHK3A&t=1m30s — Preceding unsigned comment added by Weirdo10o4 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Remove everything, this article is horrible in every sense possible. Unclear, overly long, heavy feel of a messiah-worship complex behind it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.19.165 (talk) 14:43, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

The articles is showing Ahmad Shah Massoud as a saint while everyone else as devils. It should be neutral. I think Ahmad Shah Massoud was just another warlord in Afghanistan, who happend to die at the hand of Al Qaeda.But this article is painting him into something he clearly is not. He aslo killed alot of innocent Afghans and is equally guilty with Taliban, Al Qaeda, Gulbadin Hikmatiyar.. etc Tigerkhan007 (talk) 11:28, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
There is no evidence of any atrocities in areas directly under his control, please provide sources for your claims. As the article shows he was progressive in his views, with equal women's rights in his territories. He negotiated with the Taleban, but it never amounted to anything. CIA personnel who worked with him all held him in high regard.
"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.[51] Edward Girardet, who covered Afghanistan for over three decades, was also in Kabul during the war. He states that while Massoud 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."
It's all sourced, if it's true then hero worship is allowed imho.
Weirdo10o4 (talk) 14:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Agree, if it's sourced, it should be here, and sometimes hero worship is justified. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:50, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Read the following section of a Dari book written by a General, who is revealing the crimes of Ahmad Shah Massoud.

the name of this book is in Dari, Wars of Kabul (1992-1995) the section of linking is the Afshar massacre, which reveals the crime of Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf. the links are as following,

http://www.vatandar.at/qadermasod18.html

video part one, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0AJPdvXxjY

video part two,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E62xmpv1a3U — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.143.227.27 (talk) 20:33, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

That is not a neutral source. The Human Rights Watch report does not lay responsibility of the massacre on Massoud, and according to this WP article Massoud ordered the operation to be halted when he realized what was happening. Weirdo10o4 (talk) 15:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Odd quote from Coll in this. If the CIA thought Massoud was like Che Gurerra, wouldn't they try to assassinate him, not help him? Popish Plot (talk) 19:33, 26 February 2015 (UTC)

The article here states:

"The attackers claimed to be Belgians originally from Morocco. Their passports turned out to be stolen and their nationality was later determined to be Tunisian."

So they were not Belgian. However, Le Monde did state this in a recent article (Google translation):

"Going back further in time, it's from Molenbeek that the killers of the Afghan commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, main opponent of the Taliban regime, took off, two fake journalists murdering him on the orders of Osama bin Laden, two days before September 11, 2001. Here, too, lived the two protagonists of the Madrid bombings, which caused 191 deaths in 2004."

Will submit a slight edit. Not to add to the curiosity that Molenbeek has generated but in terms of facts. Hyper-linking is what the web was made for. --JamesPoulson (talk) 01:54, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2016

Please replace broken link in note 108 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a040601massoudspeech#a040601massoudspeech with this working link: http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a040601massoudspeech&scale=0

Monberl (talk) 22:40, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

Done EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:11, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

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I'm currently reading Gordon Carrera's history of MI6 and in that there is a description of how MI6 worked with Massoud even though the CIA preferred other contacts. The international section of this article seems to me to give an American view of him and could possibly do with some editing to show that other countries were more closely linked to him. That Massoud was invited to speak at the European Parliament is perhaps a hint of that. GlenUsk2 (talk) 08:55, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Under "International Links" 

There is a citation needed for the sentence "In 1997, U.S. State Department's Robin Raphel suggested to Massoud he should surrender to the Taliban. He soundly rejected the proposal. [citation needed]" After evaluating the statement, I did not find any article citations on it. I did find more general statements about how Robin Raphel, as well as other diplomats often met with Taliban members to negotiate[1] H.tennis (talk) 07:05, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

In War in Afghanistan (2001–2014), this claim is cited to Marcela Grad (1 March 2009). Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader. Webster University Press. p. 310. Clean Copytalk 09:11, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

Picture in United Front Against the Taliban

This is a badly made map that uses Microsoft Paint, from an unverified user, that is not clear or useful. Picture claims to show situation in October 2001, in French. Please remove or flag. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thunderfire70 (talk • contribs) 23:39, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 16 April 2018

Reference 115 is broken. It links here: http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a040601massoudspeech&scale=0 Reprise85 (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

@Reprise85:  Fixed. Simplexity22 (talk) 02:13, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Marcela Grad – Massoud: An Intimate Portrait of the Legendary Afghan Leader

The reliability of above mentioned book (presently cited 23 times in article Ahmad Shah Massoud) as source for Wikipedia articles has been discussed shortly (1½ days) in now archived sections Questionable sourcing and Stop it! but no one has yet come up with the conclusion I'd now like to draw from those discussions and some further observations.
The book appears to be not collected by any library in my home country (in Western Europe with 17 million citizens) which seems not a good sign as to the perceived (historic/academic) qualities of it. According to worldcat.org, only 62 libraries in the world own a copy of it: two in the UK, one in Germany, one in Sweden, one in New Zealand, one in Afghanistan, the rest apparently all in the U.S.A. (if I've checked correctly).
Author MG has "collected accounts" in it from "reliable experts", says JCAla (28Sept2012,13:00) who owns a copy of the book (28Sep12,20:15); miss Grad "lists information" in her book "provided to her" by "high-standard"(JCAla28Sep14:28) "highly professional journalists and diplomats and others"(28Sep13:41).
In that case, with MG herself not being '(highly) professional' etc. herself (as far as we know), we'd need to know the real (authoritative) spokesman of every quote from the book we'd want to cite in a Wikipedia article. Citations/'facts' from the book up until now attributed only to M.Grad and not yet to one of those "high-standard" "named experts(etc.)"(JCAla28Sep20:15) may or must be considered and/or tagged as unreliable (without question mark!) and may or must be removed from the articles. --Corriebertus (talk) 09:53, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Remove ISI from lede

The lede says the following: "Massoud was assassinated at the instigation of al-Qaeda and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in a suicide bombing on September 9, 2001.[citation needed]" No evidence is presented in the article that this was connected to ISI, it is simply mentioned as a possibility as stated in a single New Yorker article. All sources say this was an al Qaeda attack. 142.167.242.182 (talk) 22:27, 21 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected Edit Request

The main image on the page is an illustration (a poor one at that); a photograph would do much more good to the page

https://ianbachusa.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/10422393_1380100318948866_3699924610650662378_n.jpg

potential image, taken in August 2001 Americanalovesyou (talk) 05:35, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Please add to legacy section

"Though Massood and I used to be enemies I am sure he deserves great respect as an outstanding military leader and, first of all, as a patriot of his country".

-Colonel Abdul Qadir, 2001-09-21

https://web.archive.org/web/20010923114120/http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2001/09/21/15887.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.100.112 (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Why an illustration?

The image makes the article look childish. Why not a photograph instead? 72.46.217.176 (talk) 05:11, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, that drawing is awful. We've often had problems with photographs uploaded as allegedly free of copyright when they really weren't, so there may well be no readily available alternative on the wiki right now, but a photograph uploaded under our non-free content rules really ought to work. Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:12, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
Agreed, the image is bad for encyclopedic purposes (no offense to the artist). – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 21:22, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

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Another Semi-protected Edit Request 28/5/2020

If you need a source for "Massoud was assassinated at the instigation of al-Qaeda and Taliban in a suicide bombing on September 9, 2001" then Johnathon L. Lee's 2019 book "A History from 1260 to the Present" says so page 647. Paragraph from the book with relevant information is

"By the autumn of 2001 bin Laden felt he was in a strong enough position to interfere directly in Afghanistan’s internal afairs. On 9 September two Tunisian al-Qa‘ida operatives disguised as journalists were granted an interview with Ahmad Shah Mas‘ud. During their meeting they exploded a bomb concealed in a video camera, which killed themselves, Mas‘ud and several of his aides. It was the frst, but tragically not the last, instance of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan. Two days later, on 11 September 2001, nineteen Arabs, mostly citizens of Saudi Arabia, hijacked four American passenger planes and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center in New York and a third into the Pentagon. Te fourth plane, intended to attack the White House, crashed in a feld afer its passengers bravely fought the hijackers. In all more than 3,000 people died in the 9/11 attacks, including six Pakistani citizens, and thousands more were injured." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.220.26.234 (talk) 17:11, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

What "defeats" did the Soviet army incur during the 1984 to 1988 period?

I think the article is comprised of hyperbole when it states that "The Soviet army and the Afghan communist army were mainly defeated by Massoud and his mujahideen in numerous small engagements between 1984 and 1988. Most sources acknowledge that the Soviet army only rarely experienced in defeats or reversals in combat during the war. The Soviets' real problem is that they did not have a strategy, or even the intention, of using their forces to achieve a military victory in Afghanistan. Generally, the Soviets engaged only in periodic, sweeping, large scale offensives designed to destroy guerrillas infrastructure and troop concentrations. Upon achieving these goals (to one degree of another), the Soviets always pulled their forces back to their starting positions. After these engagements, the guerrillas would reoccupy lost ground and begin rebuilding infrastructure and military strength. The Soviet goal was only to set back the guerrillas' capacity to wage war, if even temporarily. Therefore, it's incorrect to state that the Soviets were "defeated" tactically or strategically in any way.

As for the Afghan communist army, yes, it is quite true that it suffered regular - and sometimes colossal - defeats throughout the war. The Soviets invested considered finances, time, materiel, and other resources in a quixotic effort to build-up the battle efficiency of the Afghan communist army. Generally these Soviet efforts failed, and often the Soviet army was compelled to scatter guerrilla offensives that made ground as a result of the failures of the Afghan communist army. In this sense, the Soviets - much like the Americans afterward - incurred a massive defeat in the area of Afghan state building. But these reversals, it must be understood, rarely involved actual Soviet units being defeated on the ground by their adversaries.

As for Ahmad Shah Massoud, it must be acknowledged that he was a brilliant and successful guerrilla leader during the 1980s war. Massoud was rarely, if ever, seriously defeated by the Soviets. Massoud's success lay in his sage understanding that his forces, being just partisans, were no match in open battle for the Soviets, who possessed overwhelming firepower. Therefore, Massoud strove to achieve the next best result, which was to harass the Soviets endlessly, and retreat before their military might in slow, predetermined, organized manner. Massoud always knew the exact moment when continued resistance against Soviet offensives would be futile; at that point, he always led superbly organized and executed retreats to fallback points that had been previously established by the guerrillas. This means that Massoud's organization was flexible enough and sufficiently durable to remain in the field as a thorn in the side of the Soviets and the Afghan communists indefinitely.

One final comment. The article is in error in stating that Gorbachev's "bleeding wound" comment referred specifically to the losses of the Soviet forces in the war. That's simply not what Gorbachev meant. Rather, Gorbachev was saying that Afghanistan itself - the nation, the people, the society - were a "bleeding wound." Gorbachev was indicating that the USSR was morally and ethically at fault for turning Afghanistan into a ruin. In this sense, Gorbachev was articulating the anti-war attitude that had been typical of Soviet "liberals (to the extent that such people existed in Soviet politics) since the beginning of the conflict. Gorbachev was simply telling the world that the USSR's prosecution of the Afghan war was unconscionable, and that was one of his reasons for organizing the withdrawal in 1987-89. Kenmore (talk) 02:54, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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Assassination and al-Qaeda connection

Massoud had survived assassination attempts over a period of 26 years, including attempts made by al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Pakistani ISI and before them the Soviet KGB, the Afghan communist KHAD and Hekmatyar. The first attempt on Massoud's life was carried out by Hekmatyar and two Pakistani ISI agents in 1975 when Massoud was 22 years old.

This sentence has been introduced with this edit and cites Roy Gutman but neither on p. 34 nor in the book there is something that would back this claim. Looks like a fake reference.

The article writes “Analysts believe that Osama bin Laden personally ordered the assassination himself”. Analysts do not only believe bin Laden ordered the assassination, there's also evidence for this claim. This should be way clearer in the article (I usually refrain to make larger edit because I am not sure if my English is good enough but feel free to use the references below).

Bergen, Peter (2021). The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 136–137. ISBN 978-1-9821-7052-3. 

During the summer of 2001 bin Laden was plotting what he hoped would be his two greatest victories. Advancing quickly were the plans for the attacks on the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center. The second plot was to eliminate Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of the anti-Taliban forces known as the Northern Alliance. Without Massoud, what remained of the resistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan would collapse. But this was not bin Laden’s primary motive for plotting to kill him. If he could get rid of Massoud, the Taliban would have reason to owe bin Laden a favor, and he was soon going to need one. Massoud’s assassination would give the Taliban an important gift to compensate them for what bin Laden knew was coming: the spectacular attacks in New York and Washington that surely would pose significant problems for his Taliban hosts.
Bin Laden asked some of his followers: “Who will take it upon himself to deal with Ahmad Shah Massoud for me, because he harmed Allah and His sons?” Two volunteers acquired credentials as “journalists” from the London-based Islamic Observation Center. Bin Laden’s men shipped to Afghanistan an old TV camera in which they inserted a bomb. When the two Arab “journalists” arrived for the interview with Massoud on September 9, 2001, Massoud jokingly asked an aide, “Are they going to wrestle with us? Neither looks much like a reporter to me. Perhaps they are wrestlers.”

p. 301 

Youssef al-Aayyiri took control of al-Qaeda’s operations in the Gulf region in 2002. Voice of Jihad, an al-Qaeda magazine in Saudi Arabia, printed his biography in which he described al-Qaeda’s role in Massoud’s assassination.

Gall, Sandy (2021). Afghan Napoleon. The Life of Ahmad Shah Massoud. London: Haus Publishing. p. 303. ISBN 978-1-913368-22-7. 

Waheed Mozhdah, an Afghan who served in the Taliban Foreign Ministry and sometimes interpreted at high-level meetings between the Taliban leadership and bin Laden, later confirmed that the two assassins had held meetings in Kandahar with al-Qaeda officials. It was there that they collected the video camera, which arrived in a consignment of office supplies driven in from the Pakistani city of Quetta for them. In an article posted on his Facebook page, Mozhdah pieced together events that he and others had witnessed in Kandahar but only fully understood after Massoud’s assassination. One of the people working at al-Qaeda’s cultural office saw Abu Hani and the ‘journalists’ unpack the camera and was surprised there was such a fuss over a battered second-hand camera. When the two ‘journalists’ were departing from Kandahar’s airport to fly to Kabul, all the top al-Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, assembled at their hotel to see them off.

Gutman, Roy (2013). How We Missed the Story. Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (2nd ed.). Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace. pp. 269–271. ISBN 978-1-60127-146-4. 

The target was Massoud, and the planning had been under way apparently since April, following Massoud’s trip to Europe. Tow Tunisian men had received training in bin Laden’s camps starting in late 2000, and sometime in spring or early summer of the following year, they were selected for the suicide mission.

Coll, Steve (2005). Ghost Wars. The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. New York: Penguin Books. pp. 574–575. ISBN 978-0-14-303466-7. 

The conspiracy they represented took shape the previous May. On a Kabul computer routinely used by Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who was bin Laden’s closest partner, an al Qaeda planner wrote a letter of introduction in patchy French. On behalf of the Islamic Observation Center in London, the letter explained, “one of our best journalists” planned to produce a television report on Afghanistan. He sought an interview with Ahmed Shah Mas-soud. A list of proposed questions written on the computer in French included one infused with dark irony: “How will you deal with the Osama bin Laden issue when you are in power, and what do you see as the solution to this issue?”

p. 666 

The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2001. The draft letter was discovered on a computer hard drive acquired by Journal reporters in Kabul during the autumn of 2001.

See also:

--Jo1971 (talk) 20:32, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lutfi17.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:39, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

spelling error

can someone fix Al-Qaida to Al-Qaeda? i can't do it as i am not auto confirmed 108.49.190.94 (talk) 00:05, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Fixed it. Thanks for the hint! --Jo1971 (talk) 06:28, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
No Problem :) 108.49.190.94 (talk) 17:45, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Ahmad shah massuod

Ahmad shah abdali was real hero of afghanistan103.115.14.4 (talk) 14:50, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 May 2022

Ahmad shah massoud was a warlord and terrorist. NOT A MILITARY GENERAL 70.30.32.156 (talk) 00:46, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:31, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a place for you to share your political opinions or beliefs
Nonamesoda (talk) 00:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
wikipedia team should kindly delete this article because ahmed shah masood is not hero of afghanistan at all ,there are thousands of more heros if you are sensior to tell real history then share information about real heros donot manipulate our history.ahmed was sponsered warlord . Delering (talk) 19:59, 2 September 2023 (UTC)
  1. ^ Caschetta, A.J. (Fall 2013). "The Taliban's Enablers". Middle East Quarterly. 20 (4): 79. {{cite journal}}: More than one of |pages= and |page= specified (help)
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