A number of politicians, Jihadi leaders and government officials, on Sunday morning commemorated Martyrs Week and the 17th anniversary of the National Hero Ahmad Shah Massoud’s assassination by laying a wreath at the Minaret of Resistance in Massoud Square in Wazir Akbar Khan in Kabul city.

Massoud was assassinated by two suicide bombers posing as journalists 17 years ago. 

Ahmad Shah Massoud, son of Colonel Dost Mohammad Khan, was born in Jangalak area in Panjshir district in September 1953.

He spent his childhood days in Panjshir and started school at the age of five. As a young boy he moved to Herat with his family and then to Kabul where he continued his studies.

Massoud enrolled at the Polytechnic University in Kabul in 1973 and at the same time received membership of the Nahzat Islami Afghanistan party. Two years later, in 1975, he led the first rebellion of Panjshir residents against the government of that time.

Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated in a suicide bombing in Khajwa Bahawuddin district in Takhar in September 2001.

The anniversary of Massoud’s death is marked annually on 9 September in the country.