afghanistan war article

The War in Afghanistan began on 7 October 2001,[17] as the armed forces of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and the Afghan United Front (Northern Alliance) launched Operation Enduring Freedom. Following the September 11 attacks on the U.S., the George W. Bush administration organized an allied invasion to dismantle the terrorist organization and end its use of Afghanistan as a base. The U.S. also intended to remove the fundamentalist Taliban regime from power, which it had gained by armed force, and create a viable democratic state. The Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud had been assassinated on 9 September 2001, and, in the September 11 attacks in the U.S., nearly 3,000 civilians were killed in New York City, Arlington, Virginia, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The U.S. identified al-Qaeda, an organization based in, operating out of, and allied with the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the perpetrators of the attacks. In the first phase of Operation Enduring Freedom, ground forces of the Afghan United Front working with teams of U.S. and British Special Forces and with U.S. air support, ousted the Taliban regime from power in Kabul and most of Afghanistan in a matter of weeks. Most of the senior Taliban leadership fled to neighboring Pakistan, some being flown out in the Kunduz airlift. The democratic Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was established and an interim government under Hamid Karzai was created which was also democratically elected by the Afghan people in the 2004 general elections. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the U.N. Security Council at the end of December 2001 to secure Kabul and the surrounding areas. This was after the U.S. sought to make sure that it would not interfere with its ongoing counterterrorism initiatives in the country, changing the originally titled "International Security Force" to ISAF.[18] NATO assumed control of ISAF in 2003. ISAF includes troops from 42 countries, with NATO members providing the core of the force.[19] The stated aim of the invasion was to find Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking al-Qaeda members to be put on trial, to destroy the organization of al-Qaeda, and to remove the Taliban regime which supported and gave safe harbor to it. In 2003, Taliban forces started an insurgency campaign against the democratic Islamic Republic and the presence of ISAF-troops in Afghanistan.[20][21] Their headquarters are alleged to be in or near Quetta, Pakistan.[22] Since 2006, Afghanistan has experienced a dramatic increase in Taliban-led insurgent activity.[23][24] Since the coalition intervention in 2001, more than 5.7 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan.[1] More than a decade into the war, NATO forces continued to battle the widespread Taliban insurgency, and by 2011 the war has expanded into the tribal areas of neighboring Pakistan.[25] The War in Afghanistan had become the United States' second-longest war. On 2 May 2011, U.S. forces raided the urban compound of Osama bin Laden and killed him in Abbotabad, Pakistan. On 21 May 2012 the leaders of the NATO-member countries endorsed an exit strategy during the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago. Fall of Kunduz Main article: Airlift of Evil Just as the bombardment at Tora Bora was stepped up, the siege of Kunduz that began on 16 November was continuing. Finally, after nine days of heavy fighting and American aerial bombardment, Taliban fighters surrendered to Northern Alliance forces on 25 November – 26 November. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived to evacuate intelligence and military personnel who had been in Afghanistan to aid the Taliban's ongoing fight against the Northern Alliance. However, during this airlift, it is alleged that up to five thousand people were evacuated from the region, including Taliban and al-Qaeda troops.[108][109][110] Battle of Qala-i-Jangi A U.S. Marine with the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit leads a leatherneck to a security position after seizing a Taliban forward-operating base 25 November 2001 On 25 November, the day that Taliban fighters holding out in Kunduz surrendered and were being herded into the Qala-I-Janghi fortress near Mazar-I-Sharif, a few Taliban attacked some Northern Alliance guards, taking their weapons and opening fire. This incident soon triggered a widespread revolt by 300 prisoners, who soon seized the southern half of the complex, once a medieval fortress, including an armory stocked with small arms and crew-served weapons. One American CIA paramilitary operative who had been interrogating prisoners, Johnny Micheal Spann, was killed, marking the first American combat death in the war. The revolt was finally put down after seven days of heavy fighting between a Special Boat Service unit along with some U.S. Army Special Forces and Northern Alliance, AC-130 gunships and other aircraft took part providing strafing fire on several occasions, as well as a bombing airstrikes.[111] A total of 86 of the Taliban prisoners survived, and around 50 Northern Alliance soldiers were killed. The squashing of the revolt marked the end of the combat in northern Afghanistan, where local Northern Alliance warlords were now firmly in control. Consolidation: the taking of Kandahar U.S. Army Special Forces with Hamid Karzai in Kandahar province By the end of November, Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace, was its last remaining stronghold, and was coming under increasing pressure. Nearly 3,000 tribal fighters, led by Hamid Karzai, a loyalist of the former Afghan king, and Gul Agha Sherzai, the governor of Kandahar before the Taliban seized power, pressured Taliban forces from the east and cut off the northern Taliban supply lines to Kandahar. The threat of the Northern Alliance loomed in the north and northeast. Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 U.S. Marines, ferried in by CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters and C-130s, set up a Forward Operating Base known as Camp Rhino in the desert south of Kandahar on 25 November. This was the coalition's first strategic foothold in Afghanistan, and was the stepping stone to establishing other operating bases. The first significant combat involving U.S. ground forces occurred a day after Rhino was captured when 15 armored vehicles approached the base and were attacked by helicopter gunships, destroying many of them. Meanwhile, the airstrikes continued to pound Taliban positions inside the city, where Mullah Omar was holed up. Omar, the Taliban leader, remained defiant although his movement only controlled 4 out of the 30 Afghan provinces by the end of November and called on his forces to fight to the death. On 6 December, the U.S. government rejected any amnesty for Omar or any Taliban leaders. Shortly thereafter on 7 December, Omar slipped out of the city of Kandahar with a group of his hardcore loyalists and moved northwest into the mountains of Uruzgan Province, reneging on the Taliban's promise to surrender their fighters and their weapons. He was last reported seen driving off with a group of his fighters on a convoy of motorcycles. Other members of the Taliban leadership fled into Pakistan through the remote passes of Paktia and Paktika Provinces. Nevertheless, Kandahar, the last Taliban-controlled city, had fallen, and the majority of the Taliban fighters had disbanded. The border town of Spin Boldak was surrendered on the same day, marking the end of Taliban control in Afghanistan. The Afghan tribal forces under Gul Agha seized the city of Kandahar while the U.S. Marines took control of the airport outside and established a U.S. base. Battle of Tora Bora Main article: Battle of Tora Bora Air strikes on Tora Bora Al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of Tora Bora, however, while an anti-Taliban tribal militia steadily pushed bin Laden back across the difficult terrain, backed by Delta Force, UK Special Forces and withering air strikes by the U.S. Facing defeat, the al-Qaeda forces agreed to a truce to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, many believe that the truce was a ruse to allow important al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape. On 12 December, the fighting flared again, probably initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force's escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Again, tribal forces backed by British and U.S. special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region. By 17 December, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. A search of the area by U.S. and U.K. forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. It is almost unanimously believed that they had already slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east. It is estimated that around 200 of the al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle, along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban tribal fighters. No American or British deaths were reported. Diplomatic and humanitarian efforts After the Taliban fled Kabul in November 2001 and left their stronghold, the southern city of Kandahar, in December 2001, it was generally understood that by then major al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders had fled across the border into Pakistan. To fill the political void, in December 2001 the United Nations hosted the Bonn Conference in Germany. The meetings of various Afghan leaders here were organized by the United Nations Security Council. The Taliban were not included. Participants included representatives of four Afghan opposition groups. Observers included representatives of neighbouring and other involved major countries, including the United States. The result was the Bonn Agreement which created the Afghan Interim Authority that would serve as the “repository of Afghan sovereignty” and outlined the so-called Petersberg Process, a political process towards a new constitution and choosing a new Afghan government. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1378 of 14 November 2001, included "Condemning the Taliban for allowing Afghanistan to be used as a base for the export of terrorism by the al-Qaeda network and other terrorist groups and for providing safe haven to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and others associated with them, and in this context supporting the efforts of the Afghan people to replace the Taliban regime".[112] To help provide security to support this Afghan Interim Authority, the United Nations authorized an international force – the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) – with a mandate to help the Afghans maintain security in Kabul and surrounding areas. Before the U.S.-led invasion, there were fears that the invasion and resultant disruption of services would cause widespread starvation and refugees. The United Nations World Food Programme temporarily suspended activities within Afghanistan at the beginning of the bombing attacks but resumed them after the fall of the Taliban.