Massoud Khalili

Early life

Khalili is the son of the famous Persian language poet, and Persian poet laureate, Ustad Khalilullah Khalili. Born in Jabal Saraj, Parwan Province in Afghanistan, Massoud Khalili grew up in Kabul where his father taught at Kabul University. As a student he reportedly spent 5 years in India. Khalili got his BA in Delhi College and MA from Kirori Mal College in the 70s.

Resistance against Invasion

Khalili was a friend and adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud, resistance commander known as the "Lion of Panjshir" against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989), defense minister of Afghanistan (1992–2001) and leader of the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban.

Khalili and Massoud met for the first time in October 1978 after the communist Saur Revolution had overthrown the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan. Khalili remembers:

Both men quickly discovered their shared interest for poetry.

After the meeting Khalili went on to live in the United States for two years where his father, Ustad Khalilullah Khalili, was serving as the ambassador to the United States. In 1980 he went back to Afghanistan to join Ahmad Shah Massoud's resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979–1989). Khalili remembers:

In the 1980s Masood Khalili became a spokesperson and interpreter for Ahmad Shah Massoud. He traveled Afghanistan, Pakistan and Europe as a diplomat for the resistance. Massoud went on to defeat nine major offensives by the Soviet Red Army. When the Soviets retreated from Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal named him "the Afghan, who won the cold war".

Masood Khalili describes the period after the Soviet withdrawal with the following words:

Masood Khalili again started to work around Massoud as an adviser, interpreter and envoy - "as a soldier without a gun" as he calls it himself. In 1995 Khalili served as the Islamic State of Afghanistan governments's envoy to Pakistan for President Burhanuddin Rabbani. Relations between the Islamic State of Afghanistan and Pakistan were tense because of the latter's support to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Taliban. In late 1995 Pakistan's government expelled Khalili in what the Washington Post called "the latest sign of worsening relations between the two countries".

On September 27, 1996, the Taliban seized power in Kabul with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The Taliban Emirate received no diplomatic recognition from the international community (except from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates). The United Nations and the international community kept recognition with the Islamic State of Afghanistan government Masood Khalili was working for. The Taliban imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam issuing edicts forbidding women to work outside the home, attend school, or to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative. The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) analyze:

To PHR’s knowledge, no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment.

Masood Khalili was not in Kabul during that time but he recalls a phone call he got from Massoud:

Defense minister Ahmad Shah Massoud created the United Front (Northern Alliance) in opposition to the Taliban regime. The resistance against the Taliban was joined by leaders of all Afghan ethnicities and backgrounds. The Taliban committed massacres killing thousands of civilians. As a consequence many civilians fled to the area of Ahmad Shah Massoud. National Geographic concluded in its documentary "Inside the Taliban":

"The only thing standing in the way of future Taliban massacres is Ahmad Shah Massoud."

Khalili remained an adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud. In 1996 he was appointed as ambassador of the United Front to India.

September 9, 2001

In September 2001, while preparing against planned offensives by the Taliban in Takhar province, Ahmed Shah Massoud asked Masood Khalili to come over to Takhar to advise him.

Speaking to BBC correspondent Lyse Doucet Masood Khalili recalled the morning of the 9th of September 2001:

Elsewhere he recalls:

On September 9, 2001, Khalili interpreted for Massoud while he was interviewed by two Tunisians allegedly belonging to Al Qaeda posing as journalists. During the interview the suicide assassins detonated a bomb hidden in the video camera. Ahmad Shah Massoud died in a helicopter that was taking him and Khalili to hospital. Another aide of Massoud also died in the attack. The Los Angeles Times writes: "The explosion left Khalili blind in his right eye, deaf in his right ear and badly burned over much of his body, which was peppered by about 1,000 pieces of shrapnel. About 300 pieces are still in his left leg." The passport, which Massoud had told him to put into his shirt pocket, had stopped eight pieces of shrapnel from entering Khalili's heart and had thereby saved his life.

About the death of Massoud he said:

Two days later the attacks of September 11, 2001, killed 3000 people on U.S. soil.

Recent Activities

After the fall of the Taliban regime Masood Khalili served as the ambassador of Afghanistan to India from 2001 to 2006. In 2007 he was appointed as ambassador to Turkey. To promote the Afghan Culture, Khalili recently translated a book of poems of his father Ustad Khalilullah Khalili into English. About the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan he said in 2008:

About the struggle of his country he stated in 2006: