One of Vietnam's greatest military leaders, General Vo Nguyen Giap, has died at the age of 102.
General Giap is second only to the late revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh as modern Vietnam's most revered figure.
The son of a poor scholar, he went on to defeat Vietnam's colonial masters in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu, the battle that effectively ended French rule in Indochina and started direct US involvement leading to the Vietnam war, AFP reports.
He oversaw the Tet Offensive against American forces in 1968, which is often cited as one of the factors that led to the Americans' withdrawal.
The founding father of the Vietnam People's Army, whose guerilla tactics inspired anti-colonial fighters worldwide, again led his forces to victory with the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.
After the Vietnam war, he was appointed deputy prime minister in 1976, however, he found himself sidelined by the regime and retired from government six years later.
General Giap's brilliance as a strategist places him "in the pantheon of great military leaders" with the Duke of Wellington, Ulysses S Grant and General Douglas MacArthur, wrote American journalist and author Stanley Karnow. "Unlike them, however, he owed his achievements to innate genius rather than to formal training."
Others have pointed to the tremendous human toll the military leader was willing to incur in the struggle for liberation, which left millions of Vietnamese dead on the battlefield.
Throughout his 90s, physically frail but still outspoken, General Giap would periodically cause a stir, writing open letters or using anniversary events to rail against everything from corruption to bauxite mining.
He had been living in Hanoi's 108 military hospital for the last three years and is survived by Dang Bich Ha, his wife since 1949, and four children.
