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Fall Of Kabul (2001)
Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, fell in November 2001 to the Northern Alliance forces during the War in Afghanistan. Northern Alliance forces began their attack on the city on 13 November and made swift progress against Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces that were heavily weakened by American and British air strikes. The advance moved ahead of plans, and the next day the Northern Alliance forces (supported by Operational Detachment Alpha 555 of the U.S. Army Special Forces)Neville, Leigh, '' Special Forces in the War on Terror (General Military)'', Osprey Publishing, 2015 , p.43 entered Kabul and met no resistance inside the city. Taliban forces retreated to Kandahar in the south. Coupled with the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif five days earlier, the capture of Kabul was a significant blow to Taliban control of Afghanistan. As a result of all the losses, surviving members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, retreated toward Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace and home of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It was formed by government defectors such as Ahmad Shah Massoud, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Rashid Dostum, Abdul Momim and Ali Mazari. It consisted mainly of ethnicities from northern Afghanistan, such as Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and Turkmens, as opposed to the Taliban. At that time, many non-Pashtun Northerners originally with the Republic of Afghanistan led by Mohammad Najibullah became disaffected with Pashtun Khalqist Afghan Army officers holding control over non-Pashtun militias in the North. The alliance's capture of Mazar-i-Sharif and more importantly the supplies kept there crippled the Afghan military and began the end of Najibullah's government.R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
5th Special Forces Group (United States)
The 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (5th SFG (A), 5th Group) is one of the most decorated active duty United States Army Special Forces groups. The 5th SFG (A) saw extensive action in the Vietnam War and played a pivotal role in the early months of Operation Enduring Freedom. 5th Group is designed to deploy and execute nine doctrinal missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, direct action, counter-insurgency, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, information operations, counterproliferation of weapon of mass destruction, and security force assistance., USASOC official website, dated 2018, last accessed 28 July 2019 As of 2016, the 5th SFG (A) was primarily responsible for operations within the CENTCOM area of responsibility as part of Special Operations Command, Central ( SOCCENT). The group specializes in operations in the Middle East, Persian Gulf, Central Asia, and the Horn of Africa. The 5th SFG (A) and two of its battalions spend roughly six m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Investment (military)
Investment is the military process of surrounding an enemy fort (or town) with armed forces to prevent entry or escape. It serves both to cut communications with the outside world and to prevent supplies and reinforcements from being introduced. A contravallation is a line of fortifications built by the attackers around the besieged fortification facing towards an enemy fort to protect the besiegers from sorties by its defenders and to enhance the blockade. The contravallation can be used as a base to launch assaults against the besieged city or to construct further earthworks nearer to the city. A circumvallation may be constructed if the besieging army is threatened by a field army allied to an enemy fort. It is a second line of fortifications outside the contravallation that faces away from an enemy fort. The circumvallation protects the besiegers from attacks by allies of the city's defenders and enhances the blockade of an enemy fort by making it more difficult to smuggl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell ( ; – ) was an Americans, American diplomat, and army officer who was the 65th United States secretary of state from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American to hold the office. He was the 15th National Security Advisor (United States), national security advisor from 1987 to 1989, and the 12th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993. Powell was born in New York City in 1937 to parents who immigrated from Colony of Jamaica, Jamaica. He was raised in the South Bronx and educated in the New York City public schools, earning a bachelor's degree in geology from the City College of New York. He joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps while at City College and was commissioned as a second lieutenant on graduating in 1958. He was a professional soldier for 35 years, holding many command and staff positions and rising to the rank of four-star general. He was commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command in 1989. Powell's last military ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shamali Plain
The Shomali Plain, also called the Shomali Valley or Kohistan, is a plateau just north of Kabul, Afghanistan. It is approximately 30 km wide and 80 km long. ''Shomali'' means 'windy' or 'northern' (i.e. north of Kabul). Most of the population is Tajik and some Pashtuns. Charikar, Qarabagh, Istalif, and Bagram are just some of the villages located within the Shomali Plan. It's a fertile area, where fruits and vegetables are cultivated and Kabul's residents picnic on weekends. The area is known for agriculture including grapes, walnuts, apricots, mulberries, pomegranates, and sour cherries. The village of Istalif is especially famous for its deep turquoise and green pottery. Throughout history, because of its geographic location and proximity to Kabul, the Shomali Plain has experienced numerous periods of fighting and violence. Alexander the Great built forts in today's Bagram, then called Alexandria in the Caucasus. The region played an important role or was often batt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
September 11 Attacks
The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon (headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense) in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt. The attacks killed 2,977 people, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in history. In response to the attacks, the United States waged the global war on terror over multiple decades to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, as well as the foreign governments purported to support them. Ringleader Mohamed Atta flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Presidency Of George W
A presidency is an administration or the executive, the collective administrative and governmental entity that exists around an office of president of a state or nation. Although often the executive branch of government, and often personified by a single elected person who holds the office of "president", in practice, the presidency includes a much larger collective of people, such as chiefs of staff, advisers and other bureaucrats. Although often led by a single person, presidencies can also be of a collective nature, such as the presidency of the European Union is held on a rotating basis by the various national governments of the member states. Alternatively, the term presidency can also be applied to the governing authority of some churches, and may even refer to the holder of a non-governmental office of president in a corporation, business, charity, university, etc. or the institutional arrangement around them. For example, "the presidency of the Red Cross refused to suppor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assassination Of Ahmad Shah Massoud
On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two al-Qaeda operatives posing as journalists in Khwaja Bahauddin District, Takhar Province, Islamic State of Afghanistan, Afghanistan. Massoud, a pivotal Guerrilla warfare, guerilla fighter nicknamed ''The Lion of Panjshir Valley, Panjshir'', had led insurgent forces against the governments of Mohammad Daoud Khan, Daoud Khan, communist government under the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, People Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Soviet invasion in Afghanistan, invading Soviet forces, and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996–2001), 1990s Taliban de-facto regime. At the time of his assassination, Massoud commanded the forces of the Northern Alliance, backed by the United States, India, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Iran, fighting against Taliban forces, backed by Pakistan. Massoud remained a vocal critic of Inter-Services Intelligence activities in Afghanistan, Pakistani interference in Afghanistan (thr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Afghan Civil War (1996–2001)
The 1996–2001 Afghan Civil War, also known as the Third Afghan Civil War, took place between the Taliban's conquest of Kabul and their establishing of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996, and the US and UK invasion of Afghanistan on 7 October 2001: a period that was part of the Afghan Civil Wars that had started in 1989, and also part of the conflict (in wider sense) in Afghanistan that had started in 1978. The Islamic State of Afghanistan government remained the recognized government of Afghanistan by most of the international community. The Taliban's Islamic Emirate government, however, received recognition from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates. The defense minister of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud, created the United Front (Northern Alliance) in opposition to the Taliban. The United Front included all Afghan ethnicities: Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmens, some Pashtuns and others. During the conflict, the Tali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tora Bora
Tora Bora (, "Black Cave") is a cave complex, part of the Spin Ghar (White Mountains) mountain range of eastern Afghanistan. It is situated in the Pachir Aw Agam District of Nangarhar, approximately west of the Khyber Pass and north of the border of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. Tora Bora and the surrounding Spin Ghar range had natural caverns formed by streams eating into the limestone, that had later been expanded into a CIA-financed complex built for the Afghan mujahideen. Tora Bora was known to be a stronghold location of the Afghan mujahideen, used by military forces against the Soviet Union during the 1980s. Geology The geology of Tora Bora is predominantly metamorphic gneiss and schist. History Military base In October and November 1980, during Operation "Shkval", this complex was taken by the "Kaskad" special forces unit of the USSR KGB, together with the 66th motorized rifle brigade of the 40th Army of the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. As Colonel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kandahar
Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Province and the centre of the larger cultural region called Loy Kandahar. The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known areas of human settlement. A major fortified city existed at the site of Kandahar, probably as early as 1000–750 BC,F.R. Allchin (ed.)''The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States'' (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp.127–130 and it became an important outpost of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC.Gérard Fussman"Kandahar II. Pre-Islamic Monuments and Remains", in ''Encyclopædia Iranica'', online edition, 2012 Alexander the Great laid the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar (in the southern section of the city) in the 4th century BC and named it Alexandria ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fall Of Mazar-i-Sharif
The fall of Mazar-i-Sharif (or Mazar-e-Sharif) in November 2001 resulted from the first major offensive of the Afghanistan War after American intervention. A push into the city of Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh Province by the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (Northern Alliance), combined with U.S. Army Special Forces aerial bombardment, resulted in the withdrawal of Taliban forces who had held the city since 1998. After the fall of outlying villages, and an intensive bombardment, the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces withdrew from the city. Approximately 300 Taliban fighters were killed and 250 were captured, and around 1,000 reportedly defected. The capture of Mazar-i-Sharif was the first major defeat for the Taliban. Preparation The Taliban captured Mazar-i-Sharif on 8 August 1998 and controlled it thereafter. After taking the city, Taliban fighters committed a massacre against its Shia population. This led to widespread international condemnation, and further ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
