An outline, era by era

Afghanistan

US war (2001 – 2021) and Taliban return

21st Century · 2000 – present

Afghanistan is a mountainous, landlocked country in South and Central Asia. From 2001 to 2021 it was the site of a war involving the United States and its allies. The war began after the September 2001 attacks on the United States, which were planned by al-Qaeda while its leaders were sheltered in Afghanistan by the Taliban government. A US-led campaign removed the Taliban from power within weeks, and a new government and constitution followed.

The Taliban regrouped, mainly from bases in Pakistan, and an insurgency grew through the 2000s. Foreign troop numbers peaked around 2010 to 2011, and then fell. In 2020 the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement at Doha, and US and NATO forces withdrew in 2021. In August 2021 the Taliban took Kabul as the Afghan government collapsed, and they returned to power. The war cost many Afghan lives, displaced millions of people, and its end shaped debates about foreign intervention.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Soviet war and Taliban rise

    Event

    What happened

    In December 1979 Soviet forces enter Afghanistan to support a communist government, and they face a guerrilla resistance, the mujahideen, which receives foreign aid. The Soviet Union withdraws in 1989, and the communist government falls in 1992. Rival mujahideen factions then fight over Kabul. In 1994 the Taliban, a movement of religious students, emerges around Kandahar.

    The rest is history

    The Taliban took Kabul in 1996 and ruled most of the country as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, with a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Few states recognised their government. They gave shelter to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, which set the stage for the events of 2001.

    Sources

    1. BookRashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
    2. BookColl, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden. New York: Penguin, 2004.

  2. The September 11 attacks

    Event

    What happened

    On 11 September 2001 hijackers linked to al-Qaeda crash airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and a fourth plane crashes in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people die. The US government names al-Qaeda as responsible and demands that the Taliban hand over its leaders.

    The rest is history

    The Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden on the terms demanded. On 7 October 2001 the United States and Britain began air strikes. NATO invoked its mutual defence clause for the first time, and the attacks became the immediate cause of the war.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThe 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 2004.
    2. BookWright, Lawrence. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. New York: Knopf, 2006.

  3. Fall of the Taliban government

    Event

    What happened

    From October 2001 US air power and special forces support Afghan Northern Alliance and Pashtun anti-Taliban forces on the ground. Mazar-i-Sharif falls in November, Kabul on 13 November, and Kandahar in early December. In late 2001 and 2002 US forces pursue al-Qaeda fighters, notably around Tora Bora.

    The rest is history

    Bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora and was killed in Pakistan in 2011. Many Taliban leaders fled to Pakistan or went into hiding. The quick victory led to a long commitment to rebuilding the state, and the Taliban later returned as an insurgency.

    Sources

    1. BookSchroen, Gary C. First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan. New York: Presidio Press, 2005.
    2. BookColl, Steve. Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. New York: Penguin, 2018.

  4. The Bonn Agreement and a new state

    Event

    What happened

    In December 2001 Afghan factions meet near Bonn, Germany, under UN auspices, and agree on an interim government led by Hamid Karzai. The UN Security Council authorises an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to help secure Kabul. A new constitution is adopted in January 2004, and Karzai wins the presidential election in October 2004.

    The rest is history

    The Taliban were not part of the Bonn talks, and many analysts have since argued that this made later reconciliation harder. ISAF came under NATO command in 2003 and expanded across the country. Donor states spent heavily on building up the army, police and government, but corruption and weak institutions remained serious problems.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAgreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions (Bonn Agreement). 5 December 2001. United Nations.
    2. BookBarfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.

  5. The insurgency and the surge

    Event

    What happened

    From about 2005 Taliban attacks increase, especially in the south and east, with bases in Pakistan. In 2009 President Barack Obama orders a surge of about 30,000 more US troops, and foreign forces reach roughly 130,000 by 2011. Obama also announces a timetable for withdrawal, and NATO hands lead security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

    The rest is history

    The surge pushed the Taliban out of some districts, but did not end the insurgency. ISAF ended its combat mission in December 2014 and was replaced by a smaller training mission, Resolute Support. Afghan forces took heavy casualties in the following years.

    Sources

    1. BookWoodward, Bob. Obama's Wars. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
    2. PrimaryWhat We Need to Learn: Lessons from Twenty Years of Afghanistan Reconstruction. Report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), August 2021.

  6. The Doha agreement

    Event

    What happened

    On 29 February 2020 the United States and the Taliban sign an agreement in Doha, Qatar. The Taliban commit to preventing al-Qaeda and others from using Afghan soil against the United States and its allies, and the United States commits to withdrawing its forces within 14 months. The Afghan government is not a party to the agreement. Talks between the Taliban and Afghan government representatives begin in September 2020 but make little progress.

    The rest is history

    In April 2021 President Joe Biden announced that US forces would leave by September 2021, and the date was later moved to 31 August. The Taliban offensive gathered pace as foreign troops left.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryAgreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the United States of America. Signed at Doha, 29 February 2020.

  7. The fall of Kabul

    Event

    What happened

    In August 2021 the Taliban take provincial capitals one after another, and enter Kabul on 15 August as President Ashraf Ghani leaves the country. Thousands of people crowd Kabul airport, and a suicide bombing there on 26 August kills many Afghans and 13 US service members. The last US troops leave on 30 August.

    The rest is history

    The Taliban announced an interim government in September 2021. No state has formally recognised them as of 2024, but several deal with them in practice. Restrictions on girls' secondary schooling and women's work, plus economic crisis and aid cuts, have drawn international criticism.

    Sources

    1. BookBarfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.Background to Afghan state weakness and earlier regime changes; it predates 2021.

  8. The graveyard of empires

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Afghanistan is often called the graveyard of empires, a land that no foreign power can conquer. Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States are said to have all met defeat there, as Alexander the Great was said to have before them.

    The rest is history

    The phrase is popular, but the record is mixed. Alexander took the region in 330 to 327 BCE, and the Mughals and others ruled parts of it for long periods. Britain lost an army in the retreat from Kabul in 1842 in the First Anglo-Afghan War, but it won other battles and kept control of Afghan foreign policy until 1919. The Soviet Union withdrew in 1989 after nearly ten years. Historians such as Thomas Barfield stress that foreign powers often won the early fighting but failed to build lasting rule, and the Soviet and US wars were also shaped by outside aid to the insurgents.

    Sources

    1. BookBarfield, Thomas. Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.
    2. BookDalrymple, William. Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.

  9. The lone survivor of 1842

    Popular belief

    The legend

    In January 1842 a British army and its camp followers leave Kabul in winter, and the story goes that only one man, Dr William Brydon, reaches Jalalabad alive. He is shown slumped on his horse, in a famous painting.

    The rest is history

    Elizabeth Thompson's painting Remnants of an Army (1879) made the image famous. The retreat was a real disaster, with some 16,000 people, mostly camp followers, killed by cold and attack. Brydon was not the only survivor. Other soldiers, officers' families and hostages came through later, and some captives were released. Brydon was the only one to reach Jalalabad on his own that day.

    Sources

    1. BookDalrymple, William. Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
    2. BookMacrory, Patrick. Signal Catastrophe: The Story of the Disastrous Retreat from Kabul, 1842. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1966.

  10. America created the Taliban

    Popular belief

    The legend

    A common claim is that the CIA created and funded the Taliban in the 1980s as part of the fight against the Soviets, and later lost control of them.

    The rest is history

    The Taliban did not exist in the 1980s, and they appeared in 1994. US aid in the 1980s flowed through Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, mostly to seven mujahideen parties, not to the Taliban. Some later Taliban figures had fought in that war, and Pakistan backed the Taliban in the 1990s, but historians find no evidence of a direct US creation. The claim often blurs these separate groups.

    Sources

    1. BookColl, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden. New York: Penguin, 2004.
    2. BookRashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

  11. Bin Laden's Tora Bora escape

    Popular belief

    The legend

    Many people believe that Osama bin Laden was cornered at Tora Bora in December 2001 and simply slipped away, and that he hid in a cave for years.

    The rest is history

    US and Afghan forces did fight al-Qaeda at Tora Bora in December 2001, and the 2009 US Senate report said bin Laden was probably there and escaped into Pakistan. Debate continues over whether more US troops could have stopped him. He was not found in a cave later. He lived for years in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where US Navy SEALs killed him on 2 May 2011.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryTora Bora Revisited: How We Failed to Get Bin Laden and Why It Matters Today. Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 30 November 2009.
    2. BookBergen, Peter. The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and al-Qaeda. New York: Free Press, 2011.

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