“On September 9 [2001], the leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, had granted an interview in his bungalow near the Tajikstan border with two men whom the Northern Alliance leader had been told were Arab journalists. The supposed reporter and cameraman–actually al Qaeda assassins–then set off a bomb, riddling Massoud’s chest with shrapnel. He died minutes later.” Additionally, “The delayed Taliban offensive against the Northern Alliance was apparently coordinated to begin as soon as he was killed, and it got under way on September 10.”
– 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, Pages 214, 252