Ahmad Massoud, when the son takes up the torch

Ahmad Massoud enters the living room of a hotel on avenue Kléber * and it is his father's face, in the sun of the Chamali plain, that immediately reappears.

The physical resemblance is striking.

Same fine beard, same almond-shaped eyes, same aquiline nose, same mixture of gentleness and determination.

In the space of a second we travel back in time twenty-five years, remembering those days of October 1996 spent with Commander Massoud.

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Faced with the Taliban, the "lion cub" of Panchir

It was the time when the leader of the Northern Alliance was trying to take back from the Taliban the city of Kabul, which had fallen on September 27, 1996. He was taking us into battle in his Russian jeep;

he gave his orders over the walkie-talkie;

and we watched through binoculars his mujahedin units evolve: in these pollution-free mountains, the view was far away.

The Lion of Panshir had reconquered in front of us the large air base of Bagram, once built by the Soviets.

We imagined a triumphal liberation imminent

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