LA POSTE FRANCE on 9 September 2003 issued a first day cover stamp honouring Ahmad Shah Massoud. This Rotogravure stamp was designed by Taraskoff. Cancellation postmark originated from Paris, France. La Poste France printed 4,363,193 copies.
Ahmad Shah Massoud (احمد شاه مسعود, September 2, 1953 – September 9, 2001) was an Afghan politician and military commander. He was a powerful guerrilla commander during the resistance against the Soviet occupation between 1979 and 1989. In the 1990s, he led the government's military wing against rival militias; after the Taliban takeover, he was the leading opposition commander against their regime until his assassination in 2001.
Massoud came from an ethnic Tajik, Sunni Muslim background in the Panjshir Valley of Northern Afghanistan.This admirer of General de Gaulle, a former student of the French high school in Kabul, organized the resistance and fought against the Red Army with a rudimentary arsenal. 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 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 a powerful insurgent leader of the Afghan mujahideen earned him the nickname "Lion of Panjshir" (شیر پنجشیر) among his followers, as he successfully resisted the Soviets from taking the Panjshir Valley.
In February 2021, the Council of Paris in France honored Massoud by installing a plaque in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The decision reflected Massoud's unique connections with France. In March 2021, the Mayor of Paris named a pathway in the Champs-Élysées gardens after Massoud. The ceremony was attended by Massoud's son and former president Hamid Karzai.
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