Editing Ahmad Shah Massoud (section)

===Views on Pakistan and potential al-Qaeda attacks===
[[File:Russian Veterans visiting Masoud’s Tomb (2009).jpg|thumb|Group of former Soviet military men, led by Col. [[Leonid Khabarov]] (center,) standing by Massoud's Tomb, commemorating his memory (2009)]]
Although Pakistan were supporting the mujahideen groups during the Soviet-Afghan War, Ahmad Shah Massoud increasingly distrusted the Pakistanis and eventually kept his distance from them.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Post-Soviet Pakistani Interference in Afghanistan: How and Why|url=https://www.mei.edu/publications/post-soviet-pakistani-interference-afghanistan-how-and-why|access-date=August 19, 2021|website=Middle East Institute|language=en}}</ref> In a 1999 interview, Massoud says "They [Pakistan] are trying to turn us into a colony. Without them there would be no war".<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=June 27, 1999|title=Jason Burke meets Ahmed Shah Massoud|url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jun/27/afghanistan|url-status=live|access-date=August 19, 2021|website=The Guardian|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130824004756/http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jun/27/afghanistan |archive-date=August 24, 2013 }}</ref>

In the spring 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud addressed the [[European Parliament]] in Brussels, saying that Pakistan was behind the situation in Afghanistan.<ref name="EU Parliament">{{cite web |year=2001|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkw-g27AUKE | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130721225403/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkw-g27AUKE| archive-date=2013-07-21 |title=Massoud in the European Parliament 2001|publisher=EU media}}</ref> He also said that he believed that, without the support of Pakistan, Osama bin Laden, and Saudi Arabia, the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year. He said the Afghan population was ready to rise against them.<ref name="EU Parliament" /> Addressing the United States specifically, he warned that should the U.S. not work for peace in Afghanistan and put pressure on Pakistan to cease their support to the Taliban, the problems of Afghanistan would soon become the problems of the U.S. and the world.<ref name="EU Parliament"/><ref name="Afghanistan Revealed">{{cite web |year=2001|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3copHs3U8c | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130721231543/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3copHs3U8c| archive-date=2013-07-21 |title=Afghanistan Revealed|work=[[National Geographic (magazine)|National Geographic]]}}</ref>

Declassified [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA) documents from November 2001 show that Massoud had gained "limited knowledge... regarding the intentions of [[al-Qaeda]] to perform a terrorist act against the U.S. on a scale larger than the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."<ref name="nineeleven"/><ref name="gwu.edu">{{cite web|year=2001|title=Report|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB97/tal31.pdf|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040113091126/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB97/tal31.pdf|archive-date=January 13, 2004|publisher=Defense Intelligence Agency}}</ref> They noted that he warned about such attacks.<ref name="nineeleven"/><ref name="gwu.edu"/>