Two Tunisian Arab attackers in Europe, Abd as-Sattar Dahmane and Rachid Bouari el-Ouaer, were brought to Afghanistan where they were provided a stolen television camera and battery belt, packed with explosives.

[9][10][11] Threatened by the insurgency, in December 1978, Taraki and Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin signed a friendship treaty with Moscow to secure a promise of Soviet military intervention should the government fear toppling.

[1][12][13] In mid-1979, with the mujahideen uprising only growing, the Soviet Union sent a limited contingent troops to Bagram Air Base,[14] north of the capital Kabul, also prompting the CIA to begin non-lethal support to the mujahedeen movement.

[1] With the situation rapidly deteriorating and supporters of Amin executing Taraki (enraging Moscow),[15][16] the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in a last-ditch effort to save the faltering fledgling communist government.

[19][21] Losing confidence in Gulbuddin's group, and committed to opening Afghanistan's Central Asian land trade routes (once part of the Silk Road) the ISI turned to the infant but promising Taliban movement.

Pashtun, conservative, Deobandi, and Islamist, the Taliban movement in Kandahar appealed greatly to the Pakistani ISI after demonstrating it could seize the Spin Boldak border crossing from a variety of mujahideen who had set up informal chain tolls along Afghan roads.

[23][20] In early 2001, prior to the September 11th attacks in America, the CIA, R&AW, IRGC, and SCNS routinely met with Ahmad Shah Massoud in Afghanistan to coordinate support to the Northern Alliance against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

[21][23] On 2 April 2001, President of the European Parliament Nicole Fontaine announced that she had invited Ahmad Shah Massoud, describing him as the "Vice-President of the Islamic State of Afghanistan", to Strasbourg, France to discuss human rights under the Taliban including the disenfranchisement of and violence against women and their destruction of the revered Bamiyan Buddhas, which had occurred one month prior.

The 5 April 2001 visit, Massoud's first to Europe, comprised a meeting with Fontaine, Presidents of the French Senate (Christian Poncelete) and National Assembly (Raymond Forni), and later a press conference in the European Parliament during which he received a standing ovation.

[20] Speaking at the press conference, Massoud advocated for humanitarian aid to Afghans and calls for democratic elections, but extensively discussed the foreign backers of the Taliban to include Saudi Arabia, but primarily Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), warning of the dangers of growing Islamic extremism in Afghanistan.

They consider Afghanistan as the first phase to a long-term objective in the region and beyond.Later reflecting on her decision to invite Ahmad Shah Massoud, Fontaine wrote "As head of the largest democratic parliament in the world, which represents 380 million citizens, I feel completely in solidarity with the resistance against the most hateful fanaticism... We expected a warlord.

Without money and without a job, Dahmane quickly became conservative in his faith: growing out his beard, discarding his Western clothes, declining to shake women's hands, abandoning alcohol, and even walking out on a family dinner upon discovering that his brother was a Shia Muslim.

"[20] On 24 December 2000, Jean-Pierre Vincendet had been filming Christmas Eve decorations on store windows in the southeastern French city of Grenoble for TF1 when, "faced with five threatening individuals", he had his Sony Betacam BVW-200 AP camcorder stolen.

[23][20] The telephone number from which Abu Hani al-Masri called Abdul Rasul Sayyaf was discovered written on a document carried by Bouari el-Ouaer, the purported cameraman in the assassination operation.

Abu Hani had left his work fighting and propagandizing jihadism in Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Somalia[e] to join Osama bin Laden when the latter returned to Afghanistan from Sudan in 1996.

Abu Hani was imprisoned for six years under the Mubarak administration until, as officials from the new Afghan government arranged a trip to interview him in Egypt about the assassination, he was freed with thousands of other prisoners during the Arab Spring.

With the interview already approved by Massoud following Zawahiri's forged letter to Abdul Rasul Sayyaf purporting to be from the London-based Islamic Observation Centre, the Northern Alliance commander responsible for that region, Bismillah Khan, had ordered a car prepared for the Arabs.

Another passenger onboard the aircraft, French-Afghan university professor Shoukria Haider, recalled the Panjshiri security guards angrily searching the Arabs' bags and clothing twice, but found nothing.

Waiting on Massoud's invitation, they stayed with The Christian Science Monitor correspondent Edward Girardet who recalled his own suspicion towards the Arabs, including asking the Northern Alliance's intelligence officer, Asim Suhail, who they were and where they said they came from.

[20] Having stayed awake to read the poetry of the Persian poet Hafez until anywhere between 1:00 to 3:30 am (AFT) with his close friend Masoud Khalili, Ahmad Shah Massoud awakened later in the morning of 9 September 2001.

After waking, however, new reports conveyed that Taliban operations had eased, prompting Massoud to call off his previous plans and instead drive to review forces in Khwaja Bahauddin District of Takhar Province.

The two Arabs entered the room and, after Massoud apologized for the delay, Abd as-Sattar Dahmane (playing the role of interviewer), from Francophone Tunisia asked "My English is not good, can you speak French?"

But the loss of Ahmed Shah Massoud would push the balance, perhaps, decisively, in the Taleban's favor.The only major U.S. newspaper to publish news of the assassination prior to the September 11th attacks was The New York Times.

On the fourteenth page of the International section on September 11th, written and printed before the attacks began, the Times published an article titled Reports Disagree on Fate of Anti-Taliban Rebel Chief.

[45] [46][47] On 30 September 2003, a court in Brussels sentenced Tarek Maaroufi, who had urged Dahmane to travel to Afghanistan in pursuit of jihad, to six years on charges of aiding in the assassination of Massoud through his involvement in a fraudulent passport ring.

[53] Receiving only a suspended sentence, el-Aroud was detained once more in December 2008, and, in May 2010, was found guilty and convicted of "leading a terrorist group linked with al-Qaeda" which principally involved the recruitment of fighters in Belgium and France and facilitation of their travel to Afghanistan.

[27][28] On 18 May 2005, three French residents: Adel Tebourski, Abder Rahman Ameroud, and Youssef el-Aouni, were sentenced to 2–7 years for providing logistic support to the two assassins, including funding and the provision of stolen passports.

[57][58] Facing a maximum of 10 years, the three men convicted were said to have operated a France-based al-Qaeda network training in the Forest of Fontainebleau (south of Paris), in the French Alps, and on the coast of Normandy.

The report suggests Massoud's intelligence apparatus had collected information about an attack planned by Osama bin Laden, larger than the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings, but key details remain classified.

The murder of Commander Massoud would be a gift to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, and the Pakistani ISI.Massoud's friend and biographer, Sandy Gall, is assured of ISI's involvement, writing "They were provided with one-year multiple-entry visas — virtually unheard of for visiting journalists.