By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - In death, Ahmad Shah Masood casts as great a spell over his adoring followers in Afghanistan as ever he did in life.

The Lion of the Panjsher, greatest military hero of the Northern Alliance which conquered the Taliban, was assassinated in September but his presence dominated the inauguration on Saturday of the chairman of Afghanistan's interim administration, Hamid Karzai.

Masood was the Alliance's military genius, building up a formidable reputation as he harried Soviet troops following their 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, while defending his heartland in the Panjsher Valley to the north of Kabul.

His death two days before the September 11 attacks at the hands of assassins posing as Arab journalists with a booby-trapped camera sparked an outpouring of grief in Panjsher, and over three months later the legend shows no sign of fading.

Guests arriving at the Interior Ministry on Saturday for Karzai's inauguration were met by a huge Masood portrait on the exterior of the building.

Another huge portrait of him dominated the inside of the hall where 2,000 Afghan tribal leaders and international representatives gathered for the ceremony.

Next to outgoing President Burhanuddin Rabbani, an empty chair was set for Masood. His framed picture and a bunch of flowers filled the space.

"Today Ahmad Shah Masood's chair is next to Mr Rabbani and his place is empty," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told guests at the ceremony, to cries from the audience of "God is Great" as he mentioned their idol's name.

"We will pray for him."

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel also paid homage.

"I met a great man, an intelligent man, a profound and courageous man," he said. "Were he here today, commander Masood would be proud of his people."


TOTEMIC PRESENCE

Throughout the war to topple the Taliban, led by the Northern Alliance on the ground and the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition in the air, the totemic presence of Masood was everywhere.

His picture adorned cars and battered pick-up trucks in his native Panjsher, in Kabul after its fall and in the rugged mountains of Tora Bora, the last redoubt of the al Qaeda network and, possibly, of its founder Osama bin Laden, the main focus of the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan.

His career was not all glorious. As Rabbani's defence minister before the Taliban swept to power in 1996, he joined in a civil war and could not stop a slaughter of civilians in Kabul as the government inexorably lost control of the increasingly anarchic land. But his legacy lives on into the Karzai era.

"I pay homage to my great brother and shaheed (martyr) Ahmad Shah Masood and other martyrs who lost their lives for the sake of Islam and freedom of their great country," said Karzai in the opening remarks of his speech.

As Masood was so closely identified with the Alliance and not with the country's largest ethnic group, the Pashtun, Karzai was asked after his inauguration if he was an appropriate figure to receive such attention and unite the Afghan people.

"He is a man who sacrificed his blood for the sake of Afghanistan," he told a news conference. "We remember him with reverence."

Like Masood, the new chairman's three top ministers, holding the interior, foreign affairs and defence portfolios, are all ethnic Tajiks and all from the Panjsher Valley.

Of 30 members in the interim administration, 18 are drawn from Masood's Northern Alliance. The dead hero remains a force to be reckoned with.