The Complete History of The Afghanistan War | Part 2

At 8.46am on September 11th, 2001, the world changed forever. A hijacked airliner was flown deliberately into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, followed 17 minutes later by another plane, which struck the South Tower. A third airliner was flown into the Pentagon, from where the US directed its global military operations, while a fourth was brought down by courageous passengers, who wrestled for control of the aircraft with the hijackers. For decades, the US had believed that it existed behind an armoured shield comprised of its tremendous military might. This belief was now shattered. With so many people killed, not just from the US, but from across the globe, it was truly an attack on the free world, and a cry went out for justice, and for many, for revenge. Very quickly, it was concluded that the attack was authorised by Osama bin Laden, the head of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network who had long dreamed of a spectacular attack on the US mainland, known to be hiding out in Afghanistan, under the umbrella of the ideologically driven Taliban regime, the US and its allies geared up for war. On September 10th, only a small proportion of Americans knew where Afghanistan was on a map. On September 12th, nearly the entire population were focused on this rural, landlocked country as the hunt for the most wanted man on Earth began. In this, the second episode of a two-part special on the violent history of Afghanistan, we are going to examine the American-led invasion of Afghanistan, America's longest war. Welcome to Wars of the World. Less than 24 hours after the attacks, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, convened a meeting in which each member state agreed to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty if it were discovered that the attack was coordinated by forces outside of the United States. Article 5 of the treaty stipulated that an attack on one member nation constituted an attack on all member nations, and therefore 9/11 was not just an attack on America, but upon all 19 member countries. NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson informed the UN of the alliance's decision, but it was stated that the US would be simultaneously taking actions both with NATO forces and independently of NATO's command structure, as per their right under international laws of self-defense. In that regard, on September 15th, 2001, President Bush met with his most senior advisors at the President's Camp David retreats in the Maryland Hills. Among those present was CIA Chief George Tennant, who began the proceedings with a PowerPoint presentation, simply entitled "Going to War." Tennant outlined all the latest intelligence on bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan, allowing the President's team to begin formulating a plan of action. One thing that was established early on was that unlike President Clinton's token cruise missile strike following the embassy bombings in 1998, this time there would be boots on the ground in Afghanistan, whose job would be to hunt down bin Laden and kill him, along with anyone who stood in the way of that goal. Eventually, the US leadership agreed on a four-phase plan to invade Afghanistan. The first phase concerned the allocation of resources to the operation, the adoption and utilization of key allies in the region, including within Afghanistan itself into a single coalition, the outlining of a number of key objectives, and the establishment of a command hierarchy. Phase two concerned the initial combat operations to lay the groundwork for follow-up phases. As was the standard practice for any military operation by this time, the first goal was to establish dominance over Afghan airspace to prevent the Taliban from using its handful of aircraft to interfere in American and coalition operations. Anti-aircraft sites would also be targeted in attacks, but there were still concerns over the number of heavy anti-aircraft guns the Taliban possessed, which, being manually operated, could pose a serious threat to low-flying helicopters. Western media sources, meanwhile, wrote articles concerning Taliban forces using the Stinger missiles supplied to fight the Soviets in the 80s, being turned against coalition helicopters. However, these were unfounded. Many of the Stingers had been bought back by the United States in the early 90s, while most of the remainder were sold on the black market to African countries. What few were left in Afghanistan were no longer operational. The second phase would also see some 12,500 troops inserted into Afghanistan, which were predominantly special forces teams, and they would link up with anti-Taliban forces, predominantly the Northern Alliance. They would then coordinate supply drops, and most importantly, airstrikes against Taliban and Al-Qaeda targets, effectively providing the Northern Alliance and their affiliates with a powerful air force at their disposal. After phase two had laid the foundation for combat operations, phase three concerned the focused effort to eliminate the Taliban, which, in turn, would then remove all Al-Qaeda support base in Afghanistan. Finally, phase four would concern the buildup of an international security force, whose job would be to prevent the Taliban from re-establishing itself, while a new government would be established in Kabul, to at first administer a new, more pro-Western Afghanistan, and then to create its own armed forces, who would eventually assume primary responsibility in providing the country's security against any remaining militant forces. The whole operation was dubbed "Infinite Justice", which certainly appealed to the mood in the U.S. at the time, however, it was feared that this may offend many Muslim nations who were supporting the American cause, as this title is often used in reference to God. Therefore, it was changed to the more palatable Operation Enduring Freedom. Meanwhile, U.S. and coalition nations began building up their forces in the region, in preparation to go to war with the Taliban. U.S. Air Force strategic bombers deployed to the Indian Ocean, while British and American warships armed with Tomahawk land-attack missiles moved into the Arabian Sea. As if the growing storm of Western forces amassing against his country were not enough, Taliban leader Mullah Omar found that his support for bin Laden had now also cost him his people's oldest ally. Prior to the attacks in New York, on June 20, 2001, after two years of political wrangling and conflict, the head of the Pakistani army, Pervez Masraf, seized power in Islamabad. After 9/11, Masraf realised that it was in his country's best interests to support the United States, despite the difficult relationship the two countries had endured in the 1990s over Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. On September 19, 2001, he told his people that if they did not align themselves with the U.S., then the U.S. might turn to their old enemy, India, for help. Tensions between Islamabad and Delhi were still very high following the 1999 Kargil conflict in the disputed Kashmir region, and so this threat was taken very seriously. While he publicly opposed military action against the Taliban, he permitted U.S. forces to begin basing aircraft in his country, which he knew would be used to bomb the Taliban troops as well as Al-Qaeda. His forces also began capturing known Al-Qaeda suspects in the tribal area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and handing them over to the United States. As a reward for their cooperation, military and economic sanctions the U.S. had placed on Pakistan were not only lifted, but were supplemented by economic aid and bounties for every Al-Qaeda agent handed over. However, Masraf later claimed that the U.S. made subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle threats that Pakistan could become the focus of American bombs if he did not agree to cooperate. Regardless, Pakistan now had every reason to turn away from Omar, and the government in Islamabad became a key player in the growing war on terror. The question on many lips in the West, however, was just how many of their people were committed to Washington's cause, and how many more were sympathetic to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. On October 4th, 2001, as part of its Article 5 commitments, NATO began deploying E-3 airborne warning and control system aircraft to the United States under Operation Eagle Assist. The first time in the Alliance's history that it had undertaken an active anti-terrorism operation. The aircraft were deployed upon the request of the United States in order to help plug the gaps in the radar coverage of the continental U.S. and involved 830 personnel from 13 NATO countries. NATO also undertook steps to increase support to all member nations concerning intelligence sharing, logistic support, and increasing security around its borders, particularly in the Mediterranean, where it was feared that Al-Qaeda forces could sneak into Europe from North Africa, enduring freedom. For Mullah Omar and the leaders of the Taliban, there was very little they could do as the U.S. and their allies built up their forces. He refused to hand over bin Laden, or pledged to stop supporting international terrorism, and so there was only one course of action left open to Bush, invasion. Al-Qaeda and its vast international support network vowed to wage its holy war against the West, but the attacks on September 11th had energised the West's counter-terrorism effort, spurred on by an American public who were both outraged at what had happened, and fearful it might happen again. Therefore, Al-Qaeda instead generally readied itself for the inevitable confrontation with American forces and their allies, when they came to Afghanistan. That day was October 7th, 2001. American enduring freedom began with a massive cruise missile strike to attack high-priority targets. American bombers struck from Diego Garcia and the U.S. Navy carriers in the Arabian Sea, while further missiles came from surface ships and American and British submarines. Additionally, a B-2 Spirit stealth bomber flew a mammoth 44-hour-long mission from its base in Missouri, the longest bombing mission in history. US B-52s also rained down hundreds of 500-pound MK-82 dumb bombs onto various terrorist training camps and fortified Taliban positions, obliterating them in a terrible show of force. As the strikes began in the early evening in Afghanistan, it was 1pm in Washington when President George W. Bush spoke to the American people. Here we have a quote from George W. Bush, "If you can find the original audio, that's comfortable, but I will record it in case you can't." On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands. Close terrorist training camps, hand over the leaders of the al-Qaeda network, and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country. None of these demands were met, and now the Taliban will pay a price. Within hours of the commencement of operations, Osama bin Laden sent a video to the Arab news channel Al Jazeera, a news channel that the West would become very familiar with over the coming years. In the video, he praised the martyrs who had carried out the September 11 attacks, and proclaimed that America had been struck down by Almighty God. Intelligence analysts who examined the video, hoping to extract the most minute information on bin Laden's whereabouts, eventually concluded that the video was pre-recorded, and so was of little use in that regard. The al-Qaeda leader justifying his reputation for elusiveness. Among the targets hit in the first wave were a Taliban headquarters in Kandahar and the local airport, but perhaps the most significant attack as far as Mullah Omar was concerned was the attempt on his life. The exact details of what happened to Omar are disputed, but he was either injured while in his home in Kandahar, or whilst travelling in a convoy, heading from his home anticipating the attack was coming. In the latter case, the attack involved the first use of a drone to fire a live missile in combat. Regardless of when it happened, Omar was injured that night, while his 10-year-old son was killed at his house. Omar then disappeared into the Afghanistan wilderness with his followers, from where they coordinated whatever response they could from the Western invaders and the rejuvenated Northern Alliance. Under an intense umbrella of combat aircraft, special forces teams began crossing the border into Afghanistan in droves, almost completely unopposed, and then made contact with the anti-Taliban allies. Over the coming days, these teams would help the Northern Alliance and others achieve a string of Taliban defeats, although they seldom did any of the fighting themselves, instead coordinating coalition air power to break the back of the Taliban's fighters. One week into operation enduring freedom, and Mullah Omar made a startling announcement. On October 14, 2001, he offered to begin negotiations with the West to hand Osama bin Laden over to a third party, such as Saudi Arabia, who could then deliver him to the United States to stand trial. However, there was a caveat to this offer. He insisted that the United States provide the Taliban with evidence proving that bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. Looking back at similar negotiations undertaken by the Taliban with Saudi Arabian emissaries prior to 2001 on the matter of extraditing bin Laden, which came to nothing, and with combat operations already underway, the Taliban's offer was rejected. Further south, on the night of October 20th, US Army Rangers and special forces teams were inserted into Kandahar province by parachute or by helicopter, and made their way to several key Taliban locations, where they used psychological warfare methods to spook out the defenders. Subbed Operation Rhino, the objective was to destroy any Taliban forces in the area, gather intelligence, and assess the region's suitability for a future air base. In all, the operation lasted around five and a half hours, and with support from orbiting AC-130 gunships raining down death from above, the US forces suffered only minor casualties. While tactically the results were considered somewhat mixed, from a psychological standpoint, this was a major victory against the Taliban, with Kandahar province being the ancestral home of many of the upper echelons of the organization. The US had proven they could strike anywhere in Afghanistan with impunity, even the Taliban heartland, and bring overwhelming firepower. Even those who were old enough to have fought the Soviets in the 1980s were aghast at the effectiveness of the American tactics. At the same time that the Rangers were hitting Kandahar province, another special forces team had been inserted near Baghram air base, with orders to link up with the Northern Alliance. Having made contact with their anti-Taliban allies, the Special Forces team established an observation point from atop the base's control tower, from where they could observe Taliban positions on the Shamali planes. For nearly four weeks, the Special Forces teams would guide waves of US Air Force and Navy Warplanes onto Taliban targets, softening them up, while the Northern Alliance troops prepared for an offensive against the capital Kabul itself. Northern Alliance forces began their attack on the city on November 13th, and made swift progress against Taliban forces, exceeding even the most optimistic projections for how the battle would occur. Such was the effectiveness of the air strikes. Entering Kabul the next day, they met almost no resistance, as the surviving Taliban dissolved into the countryside, heading for their ancestral home of Kandahar province, for what may be many believed would be their last stand. Tora Bora, which means Black Cave in the Pashtun language of the Taliban, is not one cave, but rather an immense sprawling cave complex, weaving its way through the white mountains in eastern Afghanistan. Command of CIA operations in Afghanistan was handed over to Gary Burntson, who was working at the CIA counter-terrorist center in Washington, and he was soon the Osama bin Laden, his in a circle and many Taliban fighters would make their last stand in the caves of Tora Bora. In late November and early December 2001, the CIA and US special forces began preparing for an assault on the Tora Bora complex, but the plan involved using Northern Alliance troops and a number of local Afghan militias to support them, as there simply weren't enough special forces to cover every possible exit should their quarry attempt to flee. Burntson expressed his concern about the usefulness of using such militia groups. In his opinion, these militia men were not exactly itching to get stuck in with the fighting against the hard-line Taliban and al-Qaeda, even with the promise of US support. Furthermore, there was always the suspicion that many of them harbored sympathies for bin Laden and Mullah Omar, which could undermine the operation. Beginning on December 3rd, US Air Force B-52s launched powerful airstrikes against the cave complexes as American, British, and German special forces moved in, supported by the Northern Alliance forces. By December 5th, they had secured much of the territory around the base of the mountains, but the al-Qaeda fighters put up a staunch resistance from their heavily fortified positions with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Dubbed the Battle of Tora Bora, the fight would be concluded by December 17th, thanks largely to the power of US airstrikes. Over 200 al-Qaeda were killed, but Osama bin Laden was nowhere to be found. With the help of his aides, he had fled into neighboring Pakistan, which brought into question the effectiveness of the new Pakistani support for the US operation in Afghanistan, since their army had been expected to cut off bin Laden if he attempted to enter the country via the white mountains. As the battle around Tora Bora waged, on December 5th, 2001, Mullah Omar transferred command of the Taliban to Mullah Obedullah before disappearing into the countryside. Under his leadership, he had risen the Taliban from nothing more than another armed gang in Afghanistan's civil war to a major military faction, to eventually becoming the de facto government in the war-ravaged country, only for it all to be destroyed in less than two months, in retaliation for his support of international terrorism. Just what happened to him after the transfer of power remains a contentious topic. It is known he went into hiding in the Zabool province of Afghanistan, staying with one of his former provincial governors, while many of his wives and children relocated to Pakistan. He had infrequent contact with the Taliban after 2001, only sending messages and audio tape recordings with guidance to Obedullah and his followers on how to conduct themselves against the American-led coalition troops in their country. Ousted from the capital city, their forces smashed and in disarray, US and coalition forces building military bases in their country. There were those in the Taliban who saw no future in continuing the fight, and suggested instead they find some way to either negotiate a peace settlement or escape to Pakistan. Divided, both options were pursued either intentionally or not, as the last Taliban bastions who are now being encircled in Kandahar province had to face the reality of their predicaments. Obedullah surrendered to the Northern Alliance forces some time over the New Year period, however he would not be held for long, as he was eventually released as part of an amnesty agreement. It was believed such an amnesty offering to the remaining Taliban would encourage them to lay down arms, but many of them did not trust the Northern Alliance, expecting to suffer brutal reprisals for the acts they perpetrated in the ongoing war in the North, prior to October 2001. This was especially worrying for the number of foreign fighters in the Taliban, for whom surrender was unthinkable, thus the only real option left to them was to seek shelter in the tribal zone of neighbouring Pakistan, situated along the border with their homeland. There they had supporters not just in the local tribes, but in the Pakistani government itself. A secret Northern Alliance, to allow the Pakistani Air Force to begin airlifting many members of the Taliban out of the country, beginning in late November. By the end of 2001, the Taliban had all but been defeated in Afghanistan, with only pockets of resistance left scattered across the country, while the remainder had surrendered or fled. Just how quickly the Taliban were defeated surprised many involved in the planning stages of enduring freedom, particularly in the CIA, who anticipated US and Allied forces engaged in a long, drawn out counter-insurgency effort to achieve their goals. Between October 2001 and March 2002, less than 100 US troops had been killed, compared to thousands of Taliban. However, past experience had taught them that this was the most crucial period moving forward. Afghanistan was now going to have to rebuild after years of decay and violence under the Taliban, and that meant installing a new government and providing an international security force to keep the peace, whilst that government asserted itself. On December 22, 2001, Hamid Kazeh was appointed the new president of Afghanistan. Educated in India and head of the Papazai people, he led them in open revolt against the Taliban upon the commencement of enduring freedom, and so was seen as an ideal choice for an interim position as president. Originally only asked to serve for six months, his time in office would be extended through elections, seeing him hold office for nearly 13 years, and thus was one of the most important figures in Afghanistan's internal politics in the post-Taliban era. However, Afghanistan was still a divided nation, and loyalties in many sectors, particularly concerning security and defence, were still questionable. Thus, the US and NATO established the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, following UN Security Council Resolution 1386. ISAF's primary mission was to train and equip the new Afghan National Army to combat the remaining Taliban insurgents in the country and help secure the new government from warlords, bandits, and many of the foreign fighters who had been training in Afghanistan at the time of the US invasion. However, very quickly, ISAF realised it was going to have to be much more hands-on in that regard. Over 90% of ISAF's troops were provided by NATO, with others coming from closely aligned countries to the US, such as Australia and South Korea, with total strength being in the region of some 5,000. These troops, of course, do not include the vast American military presence, which continued conducting its military campaign in the region as part of its war on terror. ISAF's headquarters were formed in Kabul by the British Third Mechanised Division in December 2001. Over the command of General John McColl, who would remain the then-embrionic forces commander until relieved by the Turkish Army's Lieutenant General Hilmi Akin Zorlu four months later. Over the coming years, ISAF's area of responsibility would grow in size as it expanded its operations outwards to cover more provinces as Kazi's government sought to firmly establish its position. ISAF troops joined with their Afghan National Army counterparts in clearing towns and villages of insurgents, as well as securing transport links. But at times, the ISAF troops found their situation increasingly frustrating. The Afghan troops often suffered from poor levels of discipline and a general disinterest in the cause they had signed up to fight for, with the age-old mistrust of the government in Kabul often rearing its head. There were those who distrusted the Western forces seemingly occupying their lands and were thus prone to radicalization. Operating behind the protective barriers and defences established by the ISAF, these men could do a lot of damage simply by turning their rifles on the troops who had been training them. There was also the ever-present risk of friendly fire in Afghanistan's often complex tactical picture, such as that which took place on April 17, 2002, when a US Air Force F-16 mistakenly bombed Canadian troops at Tarnac Farm, a former Taliban compound. An even more deadly incident took place three months later on July 1, 2002, when US planes bombed a wedding north of Kandahar City. The bombing killed nearly 30 people, including children, and was blamed on the guests firing AK-47 rifles into the air in celebration. US forces mistaking this for an attack. Such mistakes, which were not only confined to US forces, only made ISAF's job all the more difficult, particularly when it came to winning over the hearts and minds of the local population. Meanwhile, terrorism returned to Kabul, as Islamic fundamentalists and those still loyal to the Taliban struck back at Khazi's government. On July 6, 2002, Khazi's Vice President Abdul Qadir was murdered by gunmen along with his son-in-law. Meanwhile, on September 5, a car bomb killed 30 when it exploded in front of the Ministry of Information and Culture building. However, the US viewed these as the acts of the remnants of the Taliban, and that given time the situation would stabilize, and Khazi's forces would mop up any remaining fighters. Washington at this time was already planning its next major campaign, this time in the Persian Gulf, against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. But those who believed the Taliban were finished were about to get a rude awakening. The Taliban who had escaped into Pakistan did not sit idly by as they watched their Islamic Emirates being remade by Western countries and the Khazi government. However, they also knew that they were in no way ready to fight back, even if they engaged in a low-scale insurgency combined with acts of terrorism. Therefore, they instead began building up their support infrastructure through 2002, building up arms and recruiting new fighters, funded by their involvement in Afghanistan's lucrative opium trade. The Taliban's recruitment drive received a major boost when US and UK forces began their controversial invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The invasion angered many ordinary Afghans, and security was tightened around Western buildings and facilities in the country, including the many embassies that had reopened. Shortly after that, on March 28, the UN Security Council voted to extend the mission there for another year to help with local elections. In Taliban propaganda, this act was portrayed as an ongoing occupation, rather than a mission of assistance to the Afghan people. Attacks against US and ISAF troops and even aid workers therefore steadily increased in 2003, and in an interview given to the BBC, senior Taliban commander Moulad Adullah announced that the Taliban were coming back from the dead to wage their war against the Christians and Jews who had invaded their homeland, and they would not stop until they were expelled. Typifying their fight for control of the country in the early 1990s, the Taliban fighters were bold in their approach. On April 6, 2003, around 50 Taliban fighters attacked a government-controlled checkpoint in the Zabul province, leading to three of the troops there manning the position being wounded before the Taliban fled, fearing that a prolonged battle would incur the wrath of coalition air power. The next day, a major sweep of the area resulted in 20 Taliban fighters being captured, but the remainder escaped. US forces began a major search operation for senior Taliban members, acting on whatever intelligence they could find. In Helmand province, US troops went house to house, searching for Moulad Adullah, which failed to produce him and unsettled many locals, often worsening their relations with the Western troops. That relationship was already being strained with yet more civilians getting caught up in the fighting with the resurgent Taliban. A typical case occurred on April 9, 2003, when coalition troops requested close air support from the US Marine Corps, and an AV-8B Harrier-2 dropped a laser-guided bomb, which strayed from its intended targets and hit a house, killing 11 people inside. For the US and the ISAF coalition, it was a disaster. For the Taliban, it was a PR coup. Through the summer months, there were more and more skirmishes as the Taliban launched hit-and-run attacks on coalition forces. Terrorism also reared its head in the towns and cities, with car bombs becoming a major threat at every checkpoint and marketplace. There were also the concerns around the border with Pakistan, which seemed almost completely open for the Taliban to cross back and forth un molested, while at times pro-Taliban Pakistani militiamen joined in the fight against the Afghan government troops. There were numerous meetings between Qazi's government and Musharraf's government to try and solve many of the problems surrounding the border, but often these came to very little. There was simply too much mistrust on each side. Qazi's government, for example, remembered that until September of 2001, Pakistan was the Taliban's biggest benefactor, and there was a case to be made that it still was. Musharraf, on the other hand, had accused Qazi's troops of incursions into Pakistan, and also demanded that around 900 Pakistanis being held by the Afghan government on various charges be released. Meanwhile, fighting in Afghanistan presented many problems for the coalition forces, many of whom were still trained and equipped to fight a conventional war, such as that against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army. The increasing use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, often circumvented the technological advantages enjoyed by the coalition troops, with many countries having to adapt their vehicles to better protect the troops inside. The need for pinpoint accuracy in airstrikes to prevent more civilians being killed also saw the rapid development of new targeting ports that had much greater zoom functions than those many countries deployed to Afghanistan with. Combat was also not confined solely with the resurgence Taliban. The mission to hunt down al-Qaeda members and demolish terrorist training camps went on. There was also the age-old problem of factional violence, in which ISAF and Afghan government troops were tasked with suppressing. Yet, despite the deteriorating security situation at the end of 2003, at this early juncture in the story of post-9/11 Afghanistan, things were looking promising for the country long term. They had seen a host of economic, structural, and cultural changes aimed at improving its standing and hopefully turning support away from the Taliban. Food, aid, and money was being poured into the country from abroad. Elections were being held for the first time, and women had more rights than ever, returning to their education and the workplace. They even had their own dedicated radio shows, where female issues were addressed openly by women. But of course, as had been proven before in Afghanistan's history, such changes were not embraced by everyone, and so many people were forced to choose between the new Afghanistan or the world they had known all their lives before. If they chose the latter, then the Taliban was the way forward. In the aftermath of 9/11, President Bush stated categorically that if countries such as Pakistan were not with them moving forward in their war against al-Qaeda, then they were against them. And this was a warning President Musharraf took very seriously. Pakistan knew its history with the Taliban, and Islamic terrorist groups would make it a prime target for the US in the war on terror, if it didn't submit to the will of a vengeful American population. But as Musharraf explained to his people when he publicly sided with America, it was not US bombs he was fearful of, but rather Indian ones. To understand Pakistan's position in the latest chapter of her history, we must first examine Pakistan's position in the region after independence from Britain. Pakistan was born out of the predominantly Muslim regions of what was British India's northwest frontier. India meanwhile was predominantly Hindu upon its creation, but a dispute quickly broke out over the Kashmir region, which was predominantly Muslim, but a large portion of which was inside Indian territory. This dispute has persisted ever since, and has erupted into armed conflict between the two countries either directly or by proxy on several occasions. India has always possessed an overwhelming advantage in manpower compared to Pakistan, and this led Pakistan to taking two rather dangerous paths with which to counter its old enemy. The most alarming of these paths to the west was its nuclear weapons program, which not only prompted a nuclear arms race with India, further threatening peace in the region, but also gave the Islamic world its first nuclear weapons, and there was always the fear that from Pakistan, countries like Iran may also become nuclear. The other path was to support anti-India terror groups, particularly those from the Kashmir region where they could conduct a campaign against Indian security forces. These terrorist groups were often aided by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, known as the ISI. The Taliban rising to power in Afghanistan in the 90s gave them the means with which to train these terrorist groups in larger numbers, many of whom also had anti-Western agendas. Now, of course, in the post-9/11 world, that was no longer an option, and Pakistan was engaged in a kind of damage control effort in terms of its place with the United States, who was happy to accept their help in combating Al-Qaeda. If Pakistan didn't cooperate, then surely India would be happy to help the Americans, and a U.S.-Indian alliance could spell disaster for Pakistan. However, the Pakistani leadership and the ISI couldn't simply walk away from their former terrorist allies. They literally could not. Inside Pakistan's federally-administrated tribal area in the northwest of the country lived many Pakistani Pashtuns who supported the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda when they were routed from across the border by the U.S. and their allies. According to prove their loyalty, Pakistan engaged in several military operations to apprehend known terrorist suspects and turn them over to the U.S., but this sparked outrage from many in the region, leading to riots and acts of terrorism against Pakistani authorities. At the same time, some within the Pakistani military and the ISI were aware of the usefulness of having some degree of control over the militants who had fled from Afghanistan, and so kept tabs on many of them, and even housed them without the knowledge of the U.S. It would be discovered later, for example, that ISI agents were well aware that Osama bin Laden himself was hiding in Pakistan, and could have given him up to the Americans long before 2011. The main point ISI was working from was that in their view, the American war in Afghanistan was going to be a short affair, and once they were satisfied, once they had got their revenge for 9/11, they would pack up and go home. This would leave Pakistan in the precarious position of having turned on their traditional terrorist allies, as well as continuing its hot and cold war with India, after America had long since pulled out. Therefore, some in the ISI thought they could simply wait out the American intervention in Afghanistan, and then things would go back to normal, allowing them to focus on India. However, the resurgent Afghan Taliban put an end to that belief, and it was clear to all that the fight was going to be a long and bloody slog. Furthermore, a Pakistani Taliban also emerged in this period, and as well as supporting their neighbours, wanted Pakistan to follow the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law in governing the country, leading to more fighting in the tribal areas. President Bush and his cabinet couldn't ignore the importance of this region in the ongoing fight in Afghanistan, but at the same time, couldn't commit troops and combat aircraft to fight in the region without expanding the war further, or even getting embroiled in a conventional war with the Pakistani military. Therefore, a compromise was reached with greater cooperation between American and Pakistani intelligence and security services to track down known terrorist suspects. Once located, if they couldn't be apprehended on the ground, they would be killed by an attack from the air using CIA-controlled unmanned combat aerial vehicles. This was the beginning of the drone war. On June 18th, 2004, Pakistani jihadi leader Nek Muhammad Wazir was killed in what is credited as the first US drone strike in Pakistan. Wazir had worked with the Taliban prior to 2001, and had facilitated training camps in Pakistan for Taliban and Al-Qaeda volunteers, who would then head across the border to fight ISAF troops. However, he was not alone when he was killed. And among his party when the drone attacked were two of his children, both of whom also died. Over the coming months, the use of drones to disrupt terrorist cells operating in Pakistan increased dramatically. In Western media, the drone strikes were portrayed as a new, cleaner form of conducting operations, capable of attacking with surgical precision. However, on the ground, this wasn't always the case, as the targets often hid themselves amongst large populations of civilians, or were located near weapon caches that would explode, sending ignited ordnance across the countryside. Nevertheless, the drone strikes were having a major impact on the militant insurgency in Afghanistan, and spurred on by this, Bush ordered an increase in their use. Similarly, though, they were seriously destabilizing the political landscape in Pakistan, as despite general authority being granted to the US, the strikes were extremely unpopular amongst Pakistan's ethnic groups and their political leaders, which put pressure on Musharaf to cancel them. Pakistani leaders soon began opposing the strikes, particularly when civilian casualties were involved. Courts in Pakistan ruled them as war crimes, and demanded they be stopped, but the US rebuffed this, stating that it had a right to act in self-defense. As such, despite the opposition, the strikes continued, and would remain one of the most controversial aspects of the entire saga of the conflict in Afghanistan. This angered many in Pakistan, who already had sympathies for the Taliban position, and it has been argued that the strikes and the US unwillingness to halt them provided a rallying cry for more volunteers to fight with the Taliban. For the ISI, however, the strikes did have another use, and that was to eliminate members of the Taliban who were unwilling to cooperate with them. As the decade wore on, ISI and many in Pakistan's upper echelons now feared that Kaze, who was naturally suspicious of Pakistan, given the previous support for the Taliban, might be the one who would ultimately turn to India for support, once ISAF withdrew. This would dramatically affect the strategic picture for Pakistan, and so keeping a few Taliban fighters ready to initiate a regime change in Kabul might prove useful to them, but ISI was playing a dangerous game as a result. And brought with him a change in strategy for the conflict in Afghanistan. Obama had campaigned that the conflict in Afghanistan was being lost because of two primary factors, the first being that the fighting in Iraq had largely distracted politicians and the American public at large from the situation in Afghanistan, which he viewed as being the more pressing of the two conflicts, as far as US national security was concerned. This distraction meant that in his view, and the view of many of his generals, Afghanistan was not getting the troops and resources needed to secure the country from the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Secondly, the conflict didn't seem to have any clearly defined objectives, which the US and their coalition partners could aspire to, and as such was increasingly viewed as a war without end. Frustration in the US and in several NATO countries over the situation was then fuelled by allegations of corruption within Qazi's government, impeding the economic growth of Afghanistan while at the same time the Afghan National Army seemed content to let coalition forces do much of the fighting. There was also the growing issue of members of the Afghan National Army turning their guns on the coalition from within their own bases, after being won over by Islamic fundamentalist propaganda. Unfortunately for Obama, finding solutions to these problems saw him locked in something of a tug of war between his senior military commanders and members of his own inner circle at the White House. His Vice President Joe Biden, who was at this time regretting his decision to vote in favour of military action in Iraq, was particularly hesitant about agreeing to the US General's demands for an additional 30,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan, and reportedly reminded Obama that he was the President, and it was ultimately his call. In the end, Obama settled on sending an additional 20,000 troops to Afghanistan, but how they were to conduct the ongoing war was changed as the US President outlined the troops objectives. Up of the list was to disrupt, dislodge, and ultimately defeat Al-Qaeda. In this regard, Obama was making it clear that everything else, including building a new Afghanistan, was potentially of secondary concern, if Khazi's government didn't start pulling their own weight in the effort. Furthermore, the tactics employed began to change, with greater emphasis being placed on the protection of towns and cities from attack, rather than the large-scale pursuit of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda into the countryside. Special Forces teams would still conduct kill or capture missions against leading members of both organisations, however, while greater efforts would be made to encourage the ordinary Taliban fighter to come over to support Khazi's government, which had just won a new five-year term in local elections. Over the coming years, the use of air power would also be scaled back to reduce the number of civilians that were being caught up in the fighting, with aircraft placing a greater emphasis on shows of force, flying low, fast, and loud over suspected enemy fighters, rather than immediately dropping bombs. The need for more careful use of air power was terrifyingly demonstrated on September 4th, 2009, after two oil tankers were hijacked by the Taliban on the road out of Kandaz in northern Afghanistan. German troops called in air support from a US F-15E strike eagle, which destroyed the vehicles, killing around 12 Taliban fighters, but in the blast that resulted from the strike, as many as 90 civilians are believed to have perished. Meanwhile, drone strikes would continue unabated in Pakistan, which continued to cause upset in Islamabad. For many in Washington, Pakistan was potentially the more pressing threat, given the support many Taliban members are said to have received from within the Pakistani security and intelligence services. On paper, Pakistan was still an ally, but on the ground, at times it wasn't so clear cut, and Obama had campaigned on taking a much tougher stance with Islamabad concerning al-Qaeda, especially within their own borders. During talks held in February 2009, between the US, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the Pakistani government proposed that the US transfer the drones to them and allow them to conduct the strikes against terrorist leaders in the border region. This was rejected, because it was feared that Pakistan would only provide a token effort, and this would give al-Qaeda and the Taliban a respite, while at the same time there was the threat that the drone technology could be passed onto Pakistan's longtime ally and American competitor, China. Meanwhile, the fighting in the northwest of the country went on, and was the scene of significant violence that sapped their army's manpower and drained the Pakistani economy, which was propped up by US aid. But perhaps the biggest shift in US policy that came with the Obama administration concerned actually talking with the Taliban, albeit initially through third party mediators, whereas the Bush administration had a clear, no negotiating with terrorists or their supporters policy. The Obama administration instead viewed the Taliban and al-Qaeda as separate entities, and with the international al-Qaeda being the bigger threat, it was better to arrange a peace with the Taliban that could ultimately stabilize the region. Just getting both sides to agree to the talks was difficult, with both accusing the other of being unreasonable, concerning the conditions of how negotiations would be conducted. But Obama believed that an open door policy, coupled with a reinvigorated Afghan army, which his government would help build, would force the Taliban to accept the new Afghanistan and find their place within it. In the immediate post-9/11 era that Bush had to contend with, this would of course have been unthinkable, such was the emotion that existed in American society. However, as the 10th anniversary of the attacks loomed, opinion on the war in Afghanistan was changing. Americans were getting tired of their troops coming home in body bags, or having their limbs taken off by improvised explosive devices, but there was also growing disgust at the way the war had been conducted thus far, which was further fuelled on July 25, 2010, when thousands of classified documents were released by WikiLeaks, many of which highlighted failings in planning and intelligence, which were costing hundreds of civilian lives, which of course in turn drummed up support for the insurgents. However, the job wasn't yet done, and to pull out at this juncture was impractical, as it would have left the door open to the Taliban's return to power, and Afghanistan becoming a terrorist training camp once more. Karzy's forces just weren't ready yet, and worryingly, many coalition commanders wondered if they ever would be. Then, just when a win was needed most, with only months to go until the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, US forces received strong intelligence concerning the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. He was hiding at a safe house, inside a small compound in a Batabat, inside Pakistan, something which was not only known by Pakistani intelligence, but was actually facilitated, as they believed they could use him in their dealings with Islamist extremist groups in the region. Fearing that he may relocate, a special operation, code-named Neptune Spear, was formulated to capture, or if necessary kill, the most wanted man in the world. Forming up in Afghanistan, a force of nearly two dozen US helicopters penetrated Pakistani airspace in order to deploy members of the US Navy's elite SEAL Team 6 into the compound. During the insertion, one helicopter suffered a hard landing and had to be abandoned, but the mission was a success. While accounts of what actually happened differ depending on the source, bin Laden was nonetheless killed by the SEALs, the whole event being filmed and beamed in real time to the United States, where President Obama and his staff watched on a screen in the White House. It was a major victory for the administration, and there was finally something tangible for the American people to see as a success in the conflict, but once the euphoria wore off, many uncomfortable questions were raised. These again concerned just how trustworthy Pakistani intelligence was, and with him now dead, when would the order be given for the US and ISAF troops to pull out? Meanwhile, the fighting in Afghanistan went on. On August 5th, 2011, the US received intelligence that one of the top Taliban commanders, Qari Tahir, was somewhere in the Tangi Valley from where he was coordinating terrorist attacks and ambushes on coalition forces. Qari Tahir was high up on the most wanted list of Taliban commanders, and so acting on the best information available, a joint US Army Rangers, Afghan Army, and Navy SEAL operation was devised to capture or if necessary kill him. The Army Rangers and Afghan troops were inserted at 2258 hours by Boeing CH-47D Chinook helicopters, which then picked up the SEAL team for insertion. Once the operation got underway, an MQ-9 predator drone spotted a group of men fleeing the location and bypassing the Rangers' position. It was therefore decided to call in Army AH-64 Apache helicopters and Air Force AC-130 gunships to put heavy fire on their position, killing five Taliban fighters. Meanwhile, another group of Taliban fighters were spotted near the northern end of the valley, and it was suspected that Qari Tahir was among them. Therefore, the SEAL team was instructed to intercept them, and determine if he was among their number. Flying aboard Chinook Col-Sine extortion 1-7 were 17 Navy SEALs, 15 of which were from SEAL Team 6, 5 Navy Combat Support Specialists, 3 US Air Force Special Tactics Airmen, 7 Afghan Special Forces Operators, an Afghan interpreter, and a military working dog. Less than one minute from the landing zone, the aircraft descended in preparation to touch down and began slowing its airspeed. Despite flying without any external lighting, the noise of the aircraft was enough to attract and focus the attention of a group of Taliban, hiding out on top of a two-story building as it flew by. At a range of 200 meters, the Taliban dispatched three rocket-propelled grenades at the Chinook, one of which struck the rear rotors of the helicopter. The aircraft went tumbling down to the ground, killing all 38 on board, witnessed by a nearby Apache, which declared Angel Down over the radio to inform their commanders of the incident. The shooting down of extortion 1-7 would prove the single greatest loss of life in combat in a single incident for the United States, even surpassing the earlier Operation Red Wings incident. The incident has courted significant controversy in the United States, and inspired numerous conspiracy theories ranging from the plausible to the absurd. Many have questioned how the Taliban were capable of such a lucky shot with an RPG against a moving, unlit target at night, while some have accused the US of withholding evidence such as autopsy reports and gun camera footage. This has led some investigators to suspect that in actuality, the aircraft was brought down by one of the Afghans on board, who turned his gun on the Americans and in doing so damaged the aircraft's rotor assembly, causing it to crash. Regardless, the official position is that extortion 1-7 was shot down by a Taliban RPG, giving the group their biggest coup of the conflict against the coalition, especially considering that some of those on board were from the same unit that had killed Osama bin Laden. However, reprisals came quick for the fighter who claimed to have fired the shot, after he began bragging about it over an unsecure radio. Taliban intelligence intercepted the transmissions, and on August 8th, he was located and killed in an airstrike by an F-16 fighting Falcon. As for Kari to hear, it was announced on September 22nd, 2011 that he had finally been located and killed in an airstrike. 2012 was another election year in the United States, and once again, Afghanistan was one of the major topics up for debate between Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney. The victorious Obama was now firmly on the path to establishing an exit strategy for the United States and its coalition partners, and pushed Kazi for his own forces to finally start taking the lead in maintaining security in his country. In March 2012, US and Afghan diplomats began working on hammering out the details on how the Afghan National Army would start to take over from the coalition troops. Sadly, the talks were marred by a tragic incident in Kandahar that took place on March 11th, 2012. At around 3am that morning, US Army Staff Sergeant Robert Bales left Camp Bellambi in Kandahar with a rifle, night vision goggles, and a traditional Afghan covering over his uniform, which identified him as a US soldier. He then walked the short distance to a nearby village called Al-Kazeh, where he proceeded to murder four people, and wounds six others. He then walked on to nearby Najiban, where he killed a further 12 people, including a number of children, before returning to Bellambi where he surrendered himself and was arrested. He was tried for murder, found guilty, but escaped the death penalty, instead being given life imprisonment without parole. Something that was seen as far too lenient by many in Afghanistan. As being killed in the fighting between insurgents and the coalition forces was not new, but at least the coalition had the defence that these deaths were unintentional. This was blatant murder. Combat stress and PTSD were both cited as being factored in Bales' decision to commit the killings, and this only reinforced the growing urgency for Operation Enduring Freedom to finally come to an end. To that end, the US and Afghanistan signed a strategic partnership agreement that formalised the transfer of control for military operations in Afghanistan to Afghan forces, which came into place on July 4th, 2012. This allowed ISAF forces to slowly begin drawing down their commitment in the country, focusing more and more on equipping and training Afghan forces. In September 2014, Amid Kazeh finally stood down as Afghan President, being replaced by Ashraf Ghrani. By the time he stood down, Kazeh's relationship with the West had become increasingly strained over the ongoing negotiations with the Taliban, and accusations of nepotism and corruption amongst his cabinet. Ghrani, meanwhile, had to contend with a less-than-clear-cut victory in the polls, and his presidency would be marred with political instability, and again, further accusations of corruption. Despite pleas to extend coalition military operations, on December 28th, 2014, President Obama formally announced the end of Operation Enduring Freedom. The International Security Assistance Force, which had peaked at 130,000 troops from 42 countries, disbanded, and as the troops pulled out, much of their equipment was handed over to the Afghan National Army. Combat operations may have ended, but both the US and NATO continued their training and equipment programmes with the Afghan forces, leaving nominal numbers of instructors and advisors in country as part of Operation Freedom Sentinel and Resolute Support, respectively. The troop withdrawal came with very little fanfare. Many questioned just what Enduring Freedom had achieved in Afghanistan, for both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda were still major threats in the country, and confidence in the Afghan government to go it alone was extremely low. Culturally, Afghanistan had been morphed into a modern Islamic country, with women especially having greater freedoms and even making inroads into politics. But this of course only fuelled the hatred amongst the fundamentalist groups for what the West had done to their otherwise culturally pure country. The controversial drone strikes on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border continued, as did special forces operations against key Al-Qaeda cells and leaders. In the West, there now seemed to be a collective effort to forget Afghanistan, particularly with events such as the Arab Spring, the Syrian Civil War, and the rise of Islamic states. As the U.S. faced its next set of elections in 2016, these events dominated the debates between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump. Burked at the White House and amongst NATO leaders, Afghanistan remained a thorn in their strategic side. Just when could they finally wash their hands of the whole affair? By the time Clinton and Trump were campaigning for the White House, the situation in Afghanistan had markedly changed. On July 29th, 2015, a Taliban spokesman had declared publicly for the first time that Mullah Mohammed Omar had been dead since April 2013, having passed away from natural causes in a hospital bed in Karachi, Pakistan. Afghan government and Western intelligence agencies had believed this to be the case due to inconsistencies in reports of his activities and declarations that were claimed to have been passed from him but never actually delivered by him. However the next day, the statement was amended to say that while he was dead, he had not died in Pakistan, nor was he buried there, possibly to avoid any awkward questions for Pakistani authorities. Replacing him as the supreme leader of the Taliban was Akhtar Mansour, who also adopted the title of commander of the faithful. Mansour pledged to continue the fight against Western forces and the Afghan government but presided over an increasingly divided Taliban, many of whom were not happy with the peace talks that were starting to take place between them and the United States. In fact, there was a growing number of Taliban who felt that the organization had lost its way and factions began to splinter, some of them even accusing Mansour of assassinating Omar to gain power. Within the ranks of some of these factions, there was a growing opinion that they should now align themselves with the Islamic State operating in Iraq and Syria as they represented the hard line Islamic Jihad against the non-believers that they wished to embrace in their own country. Thus was born the terror group known as ISIS-K, with the K referring to Khorasan, referring to the Khorasan region which historically encompasses parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and further into Central Asia. ISIS-K's first leader Hafiz Khan heralded from the Pakistan Taliban and recruited many disenfranchised Taliban men on both sides of the border. As a result, their fight would not only focus on U.S., Afghan and NATO troops, but also against the Taliban, who viewed them as an outside threat. However, numbers were not on their side compared to the firmly established Taliban, and so their focus primarily concerned terror attacks against Western and Shia Muslim targets who were seen as inferior to the sunny ISIS-K movement. On January 20th, 2017, Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States, elected on a commitment that he would finally be the one to bring home America's fighting men and women from Afghanistan, while at the same time taking a much harder line with ISIS and al-Qaeda. Upon taking office, there were some 16,500 troops still in Afghanistan, along with an equivalent number of NATO troops, but even Trump would be forced to admit that the situation was still highly volatile. Making good on his promise and taking a tougher stance than his predecessor, Trump ordered an expansion of drone strikes, and these would lead to the deaths of both Akhtar Mansour and Hafiz Khan. But concurrently, civilian casualties also increased, as the strikes often took place in built-up areas. Then on April 13th, 2017, U.S. forces unleashed their most powerful conventional weapon against ISIS-K, when they dropped a single, massive Ordinance Air Blast, or Moab device, on a tunnel complex in the Akin District of Nangahar Province. U.S. officials claimed that the decision to use the weapon was for both practical and psychological purposes in the war against Islamic State. It remains debated whether Trump directly ordered the strike, but regardless, world opinion was deeply divided, with former Afghan President Qazi accusing Trump of using his country as a testing ground for new weapons. Around 96 ISIS-K fighters are believed to have been killed, along with three civilians, and it did indeed send a powerful message to ISIS-K, and anyone who opposed America, that the gloves would be coming off with the new president. However, as a deterrent, it utterly failed, and attacks against Western troops, aid workers, and Afghan security forces actually increased, which prompted Trump to do a U-turn on his pledge not to increase U.S. troop numbers, sending an additional 5,000 to Afghanistan by the end of the year. Into 2018, and it looked as though the situation was anything but stabilizing, ISIS-K fighters attacked an office of the charity Save the Children in Jalalabad on January 24th, killing three people. The attack was part of their campaign against Western institutions, and prompted the charity to withdraw from the country. For their part, the Taliban conducted a suicide attack against an Afghan government checkpoint near a number of foreign embassies in Kabul, killing 103 people. Just over a week after that, a U.S. Air Force B-52 dropped a staggering 24 precision-guided bombs in a single attack, the highest number in history thus far. It was a strike aimed at a Taliban training camp. It seemed that peace was further away than ever. Meanwhile, Trump was increasingly under pressure to make good on his word regarding Afghanistan, and followed on Obama's policy of trying to open a dialogue with the Taliban. The Taliban, now under the leadership of Hibertula Akhanzada, were now more open to sitting down with the U.S. diplomats in Qatar to discuss some kind of agreement. However, rather than calling a ceasefire, they instead carried out a number of high-profile attacks in 2019, seizing greater areas of land between meetings, believing this would strengthen their hand at the table in Qatar. The often paltry response from Afghan security forces only seemed to encourage them further, but this of course stalled talks, as Trump needed to present the U.S. and NATO withdrawal as a victory. This job was made all the more difficult by the chaos going on in the Afghani government, which was facing ongoing accusations of corruption. On September 28th, 2019, Grani appeared to narrowly win the presidential election against his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, but Abdullah refused to accept the results and even formed a shadow government. The resulting political crisis seemed to leave the country in limbo at a crucial time, in negotiations with the Taliban. Thus, when the U.S. and the Taliban finally agreed to a deal on February 29th, 2020, in Doha, Qatar, there was no involvement from the Afghan political leadership, which was still squabbling amongst itself. The Doha agreement finally allowed U.S. and NATO troops to withdraw from Afghanistan. On the grounds that the Taliban publicly pledged not to permit al-Qaeda to use Taliban-controlled territory for refuge in the future. With the Afghan government doing the same in the rest of the country, the agreement was sold to the world as the Western powers achieving their goal in the aftermath of 9/11. The agreement would see the Afghan government having to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, who would then return 1,000 government prisoners. The U.S. meanwhile would withdraw some 5,000 troops within four months and close up to five bases with a full withdrawal of all U.S. and NATO troops by May 1st, 2021. However, the agreement would not be one of peace for the people of Afghanistan. On the contrary, the Taliban's insurgency against granny, who was now having to share power with Abdullah, saw violence spike to over 70% on the previous year. Furthermore, with U.S. and coalition airpower scaled back as part of the agreement, not only did Taliban casualties in engagements drop off significantly, but their successes only grew in number, as Afghan government forces suffered from poor morale, brought on by low or sometimes even non-existent pay and inept leadership. On June 22nd, 2020, Afghanistan saw its bloodiest week of fighting in almost 20 years, as the Taliban launched a major offensive across 18 Afghan provinces. 291 government troops were killed, and 550 others wounded. In Washington D.C., the violence was deemed totally unacceptable in view of the Doha agreement, and there was a move on Capitol Hill to limit the troops being withdrawn, but the momentum couldn't be stopped, and the world seemed prepared to accept that the Western powers would likely be leaving Afghanistan in a state of civil war. Estimates on how long the fighting would last varied from a year to a decade, but it was clear to Trump's government and the world powers that America and the coalition would be leaving Afghanistan to fall into the hands of the Taliban. Against this backdrop, the significantly depleted but tenacious ISIS-K group continued their reign of terror. For them, there was no such thing as the innocence, something which they proved on May 12th, 2020, when gunmen stormed a hospital run by the charity Doctors Without Borders, and gunned down aid workers, new mothers, and then newborn babies. The conflict in Afghanistan was America's longest war, and this is typified by the fact that the final months of U.S. troops being in the country was overseen by a fourth American president, Democrat Joe Biden. Upon coming to office on January 20th, 2021, just 2,500 U.S. troops remained. Regarding the violence in Afghanistan, Biden's government announced it would be reviewing its withdrawal commitments, but ultimately decided to continue the process. It was no secret that Biden had no intention of continuing what he viewed as a forever war that couldn't be won, but he did push back the date by which the last U.S. troops would have to be withdrawn from May 1st to the symbolic date of September 11th, exactly 20 years since the 9/11 attacks that prompted their entry to Afghanistan in the first place. Despite the delay, the Taliban used the original date as the start for their new summer offensive, which would take the world by complete surprise. Controlling less than one-quarter of Afghanistan's districts, they launched a massive offensive on nearly every front against Granny's forces, who were now left to fend for themselves with U.S. and coalition partners focusing solely on their own people as they withdrew. Despite being well-equipped and trained by NATO forces, the Afghans completely collapsed and either deserted or defected to the Taliban. Western media showed perplexing images of American-made Humvees and armoured vehicles being driven around by the Taliban as they used them to continue their offensive. By August, the Taliban had tripled the territory under its control, mostly in the rural areas, and were now pressing onto the larger towns and provincial capitals, many of which fell without a fight. In croaching on Kabul, the writing was on the wall for Ashraf Granny, who abandoned the country on August 15th, 2021. Just like how the capital city had been taken from them in 2001, the Taliban took the city without having to fire a shot. This was, of course, a serious concern for the U.S. and remaining NATO troops as they retreated to the city's Hamid-Khazi International Airport to continue evacuating. Joining them were thousands of terrified Afghans who were desperate to get on the flights out of the country, terrified of what would happen to them under the Taliban. Harrowing footage would emerge of two men attempting to cling to a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft as it took off, only to fall to their deaths. Others at the airport were also swamped with people who tried to fill every space on board, believing they would be able to escape, but this only grounded the aircraft. The scene became so desperate that American AH-64 helicopter gunships had to swoop in and try and clear people away from the tarmac using the downwash from their rotors until additional American and British troops could be flown in to secure the airport and allow its safe use. Yet, even then, things were precarious, as one RAF pilot explained to a news crew that there was no traffic control in place, and pilots were relying on radio communication to one another to assess when it was safe to take off and land. With so many people crowding into the area, and the world's media recording everything, ISIS-K couldn't resist striking one last very public and fatal blow against the Western troops in Afghanistan. In 1,750 hours on August 26, at one of the entrances to the airport known as Abbey Gates, where US Marines were processing people for entry, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive belts amongst a crowd of people. This was followed by ISIS-K gunmen opening fire on the crowd and the Marines. 169 Afghan civilians were killed, along with 11 US Marines, one US Army soldier, and one US Navy corpsman. The world was outraged, and there were calls in Washington for revenge. President Biden authorized a drone attack on a vehicle believed to be carrying ISIS-K members directly responsible for the attack. However, it would later transpire that 10 civilians, including 7 children, were killed, the driver having worked for an aid organization, and had a claim to leave the country aboard American military transports. The next day, on August 30, 2021, Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the US Army 82nd Airborne Division, boarded a C-17, which promptly took off from Kabul. This flight marked the end of the nearly 20-year conflict in the country, and leaves behind a battered and broken Afghanistan. With the Taliban in control once more, the prevailing question on everyone's minds was was it worth it? Early history will have the answer. In the meantime, Afghanistan closes out yet another brutal chapter of its violent history against the influence of the outside world.