Ahmad Massoud is the leader of the National Resistance Front of

Afghanistan.
In 1998, when I was 9 years old, my father, the mujahideen
commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, gathered his soldiers in a cave
in the Panjshir Valley of northern Afghanistan. They sat and
listened as my father’s friend, French philosopher Bernard-Henri
Lévy, addressed them. “When you fight for your freedom,” Lévy
said, “you fight also for our freedom.”

My father never forgot this as he fought against the Taliban regime.

Up until the moment he was assassinated on Sept. 9, 2001, at the
behest of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, he was fighting for the fate of
Afghanistan but also for the West.

Now this common struggle is more essential than ever in these dark,
tense hours for my homeland.

I write from the Panjshir Valley today, ready to follow in my father’s

footsteps, with mujahideen fighters who are prepared to once again
take on the Taliban. We have stores of ammunition and arms that
we have patiently collected since my father’s time, because we knew
this day might come.

We also have the weapons carried by the Afghans who, over the past
72 hours, have responded to my appeal to join the resistance in
Panjshir. We have soldiers from the Afghan regular army who were
disgusted by the surrender of their commanders and are now
making their way to the hills of Panjshir with their equipment.
Former members of the Afghan Special Forces have also joined our
struggle.

But that is not enough. If Taliban warlords launch an assault, they

will of course face staunch resistance from us. The flag of the
National Resistance Front will fly over every position that they
attempt to take, as the National United Front flag flew 20 years ago.
Yet we know that our military forces and logistics will not be
sufficient. They will be rapidly depleted unless our friends in the
West can find a way to supply us without delay.

The United States and its allies have left the battlefield, but America
can still be a “great arsenal of democracy,” as Franklin D.
Roosevelt said when coming to the aid of the beleaguered British
before the U.S. entry into World War II.

To that end, I entreat Afghanistan’s friends in the West to intercede

for us in Washington and in New York, with Congress and with the
Biden administration. Intercede for us in London, where I
completed my studies, and in Paris, where my father’s memory
was honored this spring by the naming of a pathway for him in the
Champs-Élysées gardens.

Know that millions of Afghans share your values. We have fought

for so long to have an open society, one where girls could become
doctors, our press could report freely, our young people could dance
and listen to music or attend soccer matches in the stadiums that
were once used by the Taliban for public executions — and may
soon be again.
The Taliban is not a problem for the Afghan people alone. Under
Taliban control, Afghanistan will without doubt become ground
zero of radical Islamist terrorism; plots against democracies will be
hatched here once again.

No matter what happens, my mujahideen fighters and I will defend

Panjshir as the last bastion of Afghan freedom. Our morale is intact.
We know from experience what awaits us.
But we need more weapons, more ammunition and more supplies.
America and its democratic allies do not just have the fight against
terrorism in common with Afghans. We now have a long history
made up of shared ideals and struggles. There is still much that you
can do to aid the cause of freedom. You are our only remaining
hope.