Hourly History. Afghanistan War. A History from Beginning to End

Hourly History, 2023. — 111 p.Afghanistan War - A History from Beginning to End by Hourly History uncovers the turbulent history of the Afghanistan War. On September 11, 2001, the United States faced the most devastating terrorist attack in world history when members of al-Qaeda, an Islamist fundamentalist movement, hijacked four commercial airliners and crashed them into buildings in New York and Washington, DC. Nearly three thousand people died in these attacks, and one month later, US President George W. Bush announced the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, a military operation intended to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan and ensure that terrorists from al-Qaeda had no safe haven in that country.Most people assumed that the conflict would be short, but this would become America’s longest war. US and NATO troops would remain in Afghanistan for 20 years until their final withdrawal in 2021. During that period, around a quarter of million people died in Afghanistan, many of them civilians, and expenditure by the US government alone is believed to have exceeded $2.3 trillion. What was the outcome of this protracted and destructive war? The Taliban, the people Operation Enduring Freedom was intended to remove, are back in control of Afghanistan, whose ordinary citizens currently face poverty and famine. How can that be? How can a war prosecuted for 20 years by some of the richest nations on Earth fail to defeat a rag-tag guerilla army or to achieve lasting change in Afghanistan? This is the complex and tragic story of the Afghanistan War from 2001 to 2021.Discover a plethora of topics such as
• Bush’s War on Terror
• Mission Accomplished?
• NATO Operations
• Surge: Obama’s War
• Peace Talks: Outrage and Anger
• US Withdrawal and Taliban Victory
• And much more!Al-Qaeda was a Sunni pan-Islamist militant organization which claimed to be leading an armed movement that would culminate in the creation of a world Islamic state known as the Caliphate. Al-Qaeda was founded during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and by 2001, it had become one of the largest and best-funded Islamist militant organizations in the world. The movement was led by Saudi-Arabian Osama bin Laden and, following bombings around the world that left over 200 people dead, had been classed by both the United Nations and NATO as a terrorist organization. After the ejection of Russian forces from Afghanistan, al-Qaeda had become increasingly focused on the United States, and Americans and American troops had become the targets of numerous deadly attacks. Al-Qaeda had links with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the organization was believed to be based there, though no Afghans were directly involved in the group that mounted what would become the deadliest terrorist attack in the world. On September 11, 2001, nineteen young men, all members of al-Qaeda, hijacked four commercial airliners in the United States. Two of the aircraft were crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, one was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, and the fourth crashed prematurely into a field in Pennsylvania. Almost three thousand people died in these attacks. The response of the administration of President George W. Bush was immediate. On September 18, one week after the attacks, the US government signed into law a joint resolution authorizing the use of force against those responsible for these attacks. On September 20, in a televised address to Congress, President Bush explained precisely who he believed these people to be. He identified al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden as directly responsible for the attacks on the United States but went on to claim that these terrorists were being supported and protected by the Taliban in Afghanistan. America was about to embark on what President Bush defined as a “War on Terror.” The principal targets of this war were to be al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, but President Bush also made it clear that this war would, if necessary, also include Afghanistan. He made a number of demands on the Taliban, including that they must hand over every member of al-Qaeda based in that country and shut down every training camp used by that organization.Table of ContentsIntroduction
Bush’s War on Terror
The Taliban Collapse
Mission Accomplished?
NATO Operations
Surge: Obama’s War
A Timetable for Transition
Peace Talks: Outrage and Anger
Trump’s War
US Withdrawal and Taliban Victory
Aftermath
Conclusion
Bibliography