2001 Invasion Of Afghanistan

In late 2001, the United States and its close allies invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taliban government. The invasion's aims were to dismantle al-Qaeda, which had executed the September 11 attacks, and to deny it a safe base of operations in Afghanistan by removing the Taliban government from power. The United Kingdom was a key ally of the United States, offering support for military action from the start of invasion preparations. The invasion came after the Afghan Civil War's 1996–2001 phase between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance groups, resulting in the Taliban controlling 80% of the country by 2001. The invasion became the first phase of the 20-year-long War in Afghanistan and marked the beginning of the American-led War on Terror.

After the September 11 attacks, US President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and expel al-Qaeda; bin Laden had already been wanted by the FBI since 1998. The Taliban declined to extradite him and ignored demands to shut down terrorist bases or extradite other suspected terrorists. The US launched Operation Enduring Freedom on October 7, 2001, with the United Kingdom. The two were later joined by other forces, including the Northern Alliance. The US and its allies rapidly drove the Taliban from power by December 17, 2001, and built military bases near major cities across the country. Most al-Qaeda and Taliban members were not captured, but escaped to neighboring Pakistan or retreated to rural or remote mountainous regions during the Battle of Tora Bora.

In December 2001, the United Nations Security Council established the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to oversee military operations in the country and train the Afghan National Security Forces. At the Bonn Conference in December 2001, Hamid Karzai was selected to head the Afghan Interim Administration. Taliban leader Mullah Omar reorganized the movement, and in 2002 it launched an insurgency against the government and ISAF. In 2021, while international forces were withdrawing from the country after nearly 20 years of conflict, the Taliban succeeded in overthrowing the Afghan government and re-establishing their rule across much of Afghanistan.

Background

In 2001, Afghanistan had been at war for over 20 years. The communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in 1978, and its policies sparked a popular uprising. The Soviet Union, sensing PDPA weakness, intervened in 1979 to support the regime. The entry of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan prompted its Cold War rivals, especially the United States and Saudi Arabia, to support rebels fighting against the Soviet-backed PDPA. While the secular and socialist government controlled the cities, religiously motivated ''mujahideen'' held sway in much of the countryside. The most important ''mujahideen'' commander was Ahmad Shah Massoud, who led the well-organized Tajik forces. The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) worked closely with Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) to funnel foreign support for the ''mujahideen''. The war also attracted Arab volunteers, known as "Afghan Arabs", including Osama bin Laden.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet military from Afghanistan in February 1989, the PDPA regime collapsed in 1992. In the resulting power vacuum, the ''mujahideen'' leaders vied for dominance in a civil war from 1992 to 1996. By then, bin Laden had left the country. The United States' interest in Afghanistan also diminished. In 1994, a Pashtun ''mujahid'' named Mullah Omar founded the Taliban movement in Kandahar. His followers were religious students and sought to end warlord rule through strict adherence to Islamic law. By the end of 1994, the Taliban had captured all of Kandahar Province.

Taliban Emirate vs. Northern Alliance (1996–2001)

In 1996, with military support from Pakistan and financial support from Saudi Arabia, the Taliban seized Kabul and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam in areas under their control, issuing edicts forbidding women to work outside the home or attend school and requiring them to abide by harsh rules on veiling and seclusion.

After the Taliban takeover of Kabul, Massoud retreated north to his native Panjshir Valley and formed a resistance movement against the Taliban, called the United Front or the Northern Alliance. In addition to Massoud's Tajik force, the United Front included Uzbeks under the former PDPA general Abdul Rashid Dostum and Hazara factions. The Northern Alliance received varying degrees of support from Russia, Iran, and India. Like the Taliban, Massoud also raised money by trafficking drugs. By 2001, the Taliban controlled 80% of the country, with the Northern Alliance confined to the country's northeast corner.

Al-Qaeda

After nearly five years of shelter, bin Laden was expelled from Sudan in 1996 and arrived in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. He had founded al-Qaeda in the late 1980s to continue jihad after the end of the Soviet–Afghan War. He moved al-Qaeda's operations to eastern Afghanistan and developed a close relationship with the Taliban. In 2000, however, Mullah Omar visited bin Laden and forbade him from attacking the United States while he was a guest of the Taliban. During the 1990s the CIA and Delta Force planned several operations to kill or capture bin Laden, but President Bill Clinton never ordered them to proceed.

Change in US policy toward Afghanistan

During the early years of the Clinton administration, the US had no clear policy toward Afghanistan. The 1998 US embassy bombings, however, masterminded by al-Qaeda, provoked President Clinton to order missile strikes on militant training camps in Afghanistan; bin Laden was indicted for his involvement in the bombings. In 1999 both the US and the United Nations enacted sanctions against the Taliban in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1267, which demanded the Taliban surrender bin Laden for trial in the US and close all terrorist bases in Afghanistan. At the time, the only collaboration between Massoud and the US was an effort with the CIA to trace bin Laden. The US provided no support for Massoud's fight against the Taliban.

A change in US policy was effected in early September 2001. The Bush administration agreed on a plan to start supporting Massoud. A September 10 meeting of top national security officials agreed that the Taliban would be presented with an ultimatum to hand over bin Laden and other al-Qaeda operatives. If the Taliban refused, the US would provide covert military aid to anti-Taliban groups to attempt to overthrow the Taliban.

Military situation on the eve of 9/11

On September 9, 2001, two al-Qaeda members posing as journalists killed Massoud by detonating a bomb hidden in their video camera during an interview. The assassination was a gift from bin Laden to the Taliban and left them poised to achieve total control over Afghanistan. Mohammed Fahim became the new leader of the Northern Alliance. The Alliance had 15,000–20,000 fighters distributed across five locations. On the Kabul front, Taliban and Northern Alliance forces faced each other from trenches across the Shomali Plain. The Takhar front extended from the Tajikistan border in the north to Parwan in the south, near Kabul. Dostum's forces were located south of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Hazaras under Muhammad Mohaqiq were in the central Hazarajat region, and Ismail Khan was near Herat.

The Taliban's military commander in the north was Mohammad Fazl. The Taliban military comprised approximately 45,000 Afghans and 2,700 foreign fighters, which included al-Qaeda's 055 Brigade. According to military analyst Ali Jalali, the 055 Brigade was only 400–600 strong, but its ties to bin Laden made it politically important. The foreign fighters included Arabs as well as Kashmiris, Chechens, Uzbeks, and Uyghurs. Several hundred officers from Pakistan's ISI were stationed in Afghanistan advising the Taliban. By mid-October, approximately 10,000 Pakistani volunteers crossed the border to augment the Taliban's forces. The volunteers were mostly ''madrasa'' students, some as young as 14.

Both sides primarily used Russian military equipment. The Northern Alliance had 14.5mm heavy machine guns, Russian artillery, T-72 tanks, and BMP-1 armored vehicles retrofitted with rocket pods from Soviet combat helicopters. Dostum's Uzbeks used horses for transportation. The Northern Alliance had 18 helicopters and three fixed-wing planes, used mostly for logistical purposes. The Taliban's equipment was similar to that of the Northern Alliance, and they also had Stinger missiles donated by the United States to the mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War. They relied on pickup trucks for mobility and operated as a "motorized light force." They had about 40 combat aircraft, operated by ex-PDPA pilots.

Both sides had a history of human rights abuses: Uzbeks and Hazaras had "massacred hundreds of Taliban prisoners and killed Pashtun villagers in the north and around Kabul", and the Taliban killed 5,000–8,000 civilians after they captured Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998. Afghanistan also faced a serious humanitarian crisis in 2001 due to drought; according to the United Nations, 5 million Afghans were in need of humanitarian aid that year and 3.8 million could not survive without UN food aid.

Prelude to the invasion

On the morning of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda carried out four coordinated attacks on the United States, employing four hijacked jet airliners. The attacks killed almost 3,000 people and injured more than 6,000 others. By the early afternoon of September 11, the CIA had confirmed that al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack. The Taliban condemned the attacks, but Mullah Omar issued a statement denying bin Laden's involvement. Although bin Laden eventually took responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in 2004, he initially denied having any involvement. One of bin Laden's strategic goals was to draw the US into a costly war in Afghanistan, so it could be defeated just as the Soviet Union had been.

Diplomatic and political activity

On the evening of September 11, President Bush stated the US would respond to the attacks and would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them." On September 14, 2001, Congress passed legislation titled Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, authorizing military force against al-Qaeda and its supporters. President Bush addressed Congress on September 20 and demanded the Taliban deliver bin Laden and al-Qaeda or face war.

On the same day, a grand council of 300 or 700 Muslim clerics across Afghanistan, who had convened to decide bin Laden's fate, issued a ''fatwa'' recommending that the Islamic Emirate ask bin Laden to leave their country. The ''fatwa'' went on to warn that should the United States invade Afghanistan, jihad would become obligatory until the invaders were expelled. On September 21, Mullah Omar rejected both Bush's demands and the advice of the council, again denying that bin Laden was responsible for 9/11.

Simultaneously, Mullah Omar authorized his deputy Akhtar Mohammad Osmani to negotiate with Robert Grenier, the CIA's chief of station in Pakistan, to discuss giving up bin Laden. The two met in Quetta on September 15 and October 2 but failed to reach an agreement. On October 4 the British government released a document summarizing the evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks. That same day, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first time in its history; Article V states that an attack on one member of the alliance is to be considered an attack on all members. On October 7, as the US aerial bombing campaign began, President Bush stated, "Full warning has been given, and time is running out."

Planning

In 2001, the Defense Department did not have a pre-existing plan for an invasion of Afghanistan. Therefore, the plan approved by Bush was devised by the CIA, reusing elements of the agency's previous contingency plans for collaboration with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Bush met with his cabinet at Camp David on September 15 for a war planning session. The military presented three options for military action in Afghanistan: The first was a cruise missile strike, the second was a combined cruise missile and bombing campaign lasting 3–10 days, and the third called for cruise missile and bomber strikes as well as ground forces operating inside Afghanistan. The CIA also presented its war plan, which involved inserting paramilitary teams to work with the Northern Alliance and, eventually, American Special Forces units. The planners wanted to minimize the use of American ground forces, to avoid provoking the Afghan population as the British and Russians had done. On September 17 Bush approved the CIA's plan and directed the military to develop a detailed war plan based on the third option from Camp David. Planning efforts were hindered because the Taliban had little physical infrastructure for the military to target. Early plans by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) included poisoning the Afghan food supply and raiding a fertilizer factory that JSOC believed could be used to make chemical weapons.

The military completed its war plan by September 21 and called it Operation Infinite Justice. This name was deemed culturally insensitive because Islamic theology only deems God's justice to be infinite, so Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed the name to Operation Enduring Freedom.

The US aimed to destroy al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban regime from power, but also sought to prevent the Northern Alliance from taking control of Afghanistan, believing the Alliance's rule would alienate the country's Pashtun majority. CIA director George Tenet argued that the US should target al-Qaeda but "hold off on the Taliban," since the Taliban were popular in Pakistan and attacking them could jeopardize relations with Pakistan.

Humanitarian situation in Afghanistan

At the time of the invasion, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan was dire, and the attacks in the United States caused thousands of Afghans attempting to flee fearing potential U.S. military action - this on top of millions that were already refugees in regional countries due to the continuous conflict already in place for 22 years. Food stock was running critically low and almost all aid workers had left the country after the attacks. Barry Bearak in a ''New York Times'' article described Afghanistan as a "post-apocalyptic place of felled cities, parched land and downtrodden people." Seventy percent of the population was undernourished in 2001, and the life expectancy was ranked two places from bottom in the world.

Fox News suggested on September 27 that "millions" of Afghans would possibly starve, amid the paralyzed relief network, closed border crossings, and the cold winter approaching. The U.N. refugee agency feared that the scale of the crisis could reach the peaks of that in Bosnia and Rwanda.

Overthrow of the Taliban

Command structure

The invasion consisted of American, British, Canadian, and Australian forces, with other countries providing logistical support. General Tommy Franks of US Central Command (CENTCOM) was the overall commander for Operation Enduring Freedom. He led four task forces: the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force (CJSOTF), Combined Joint Task Force Mountain (CJTF-Mountain), the Joint Interagency Task Force-Counterterrorism (JIATF-CT), and the Coalition Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force (CJCMOTF).

CJSOTF consisted of three subordinate task forces: Joint Special Operations Task Force-North (JSOTF-North or Task Force Dagger), Joint Special Operations Task Force-South (JSOTF-South or Task Force K-Bar) and Task Force Sword (later renamed Task Force 11). Task Force Dagger was led by Colonel James Mulholland and was formed around his 5th Special Forces Group with helicopter support from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160th SOAR). Dagger was assigned to the north of Afghanistan and Task Force K-Bar was assigned to southern Afghanistan. K-Bar was led by Navy SEAL Captain Robert Harward and formed around SEAL Teams 2, 3 and 8 and Green Berets from 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group. The task force principally conducted special reconnaissance and sensitive site exploitation missions. Most coalition contributions were arrayed under K-Bar, including New Zealand's Special Air Service, Canada's Joint Task Force 2, and Germany's ''Kommando Spezialkräfte''. Task Force Sword was the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) component of the mission. Task Force Sword's primary objective was capturing or killing senior leadership within al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Sword was structured around a two-squadron component of operators from Delta Force and SEAL Team Six was supported by a Ranger force protection team, an Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) signals intercept and surveillance team, and the 160th SOAR. The British Special Boat Service was integrated directly into Sword's structure.

Alongside the SOF task forces operated the largely conventional CJTF-Mountain. Mountain initially comprised three subordinate commands, but only one was a special operations force – Task Force 64, a special forces task group built around a sabre squadron from the Australian SAS. The US Marines contributed Task Force 58, consisting of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. The JIATF-CT (also known as Task Force Bowie), led by Brigadier General Gary Harrell, was an intelligence integration and fusion activity composed of personnel from all participating units. Bowie numbered 36 military personnel and 57 from agencies such as the FBI, NSA, and CIA, as well as liaison officers from coalition SOF. Administratively embedded within Bowie was Advanced Force Operations (AFO). AFO was a 45-man reconnaissance unit made up of Delta Force reconnaissance specialists augmented by selected SEALs and supported by ISA's technical experts. AFO had been raised to support TF Sword and was tasked with intelligence preparation of the battlefield, working closely with the CIA and reporting directly to TF Sword. AFO conducted covert reconnaissance along the border with Pakistan. The AFO operators deployed observation posts to watch and report enemy movements and numbers and conduct environmental reconnaissance. The final task force supporting the invasion was CJCMOTF, which would manage civil affairs and humanitarian efforts.

First move

On September 26, fifteen days after 9/11, the US covertly inserted (via CIA-piloted Mi-17 helicopter) 10 members of the CIA into the Panjshir Valley, Massoud's stronghold. The CIA mission was led by Gary Schroen and designated the Northern Afghanistan Liaison Team, known by the call-sign 'Jawbreaker'. In addition to specialized human assets, the team brought a metal case containing $3 million in $100 bills to buy support. Jawbreaker linked up with General Mohammed Fahim, commander of the Northern Alliance forces in the Panjshir Valley, and prepared the way for introduction of Army Special Forces. The Jawbreaker team brought satellite communications equipment, enabling its intelligence reports to be instantly available to CIA headquarters. The team also assessed potential targets for Operation Crescent Wind, provided ''in-extremis'' combat search and rescue (CSAR), and could provide bomb damage assessment for the air campaign. To allow fixed-wing aircraft to land in the area, the team refurbished an airstrip at Gulbahar built by the British in 1919.

On September 28, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw approved the deployment of MI6 officers to Afghanistan, utilizing people involved with the ''mujahideen'' in the 1980s, who had language skills and regional expertise. At month's end, a handful of MI6 officers landed in northeast Afghanistan and met with Fahim. They began working with other contacts in the north and south to build alliances, secure support, and bribe as many Taliban commanders as possible to change sides or leave the fight. Two more CIA teams soon arrived, operating near Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif.

Initial air strikes

On October 7, the US began military operations in Afghanistan with air strikes on 31 targets across the country. Most of the Taliban's outdated SA-2 and SA-3 surface-to-air missiles, small fleet of MIG-21s and Su-22s, and radar and command units were destroyed on the first night. On the same night the CIA conducted the first-ever air strike with a Predator drone. The Predator was loitering over Mullah Omar's house and followed several men who left the house. CIA analysts believed that Omar was in the group, which drove first to the house of Omar's mother and then to a school west of Kandahar. The men stayed in the school for several hours and the CIA requested that the Air Force strike the school with a conventional bomb, but Franks denied the request, citing the risk of collateral damage and uncertainty over whether Omar was really there. The CIA fired the Predator's Hellfire missile at a truck outside to draw the men out; the men left the school, and Omar escaped. Predator drones had been in development since the early 1990s, had been used to search for bin Laden since 2000, and had even been proposed as a means of assassinating bin Laden before 9/11. The employment of armed Predators in Afghanistan marked the start of a new era of drone warfare.

US aircraft bombed Taliban training camps and air defenses over the next several days, employing Apache helicopter gunships from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade. US Navy cruisers, destroyers and Royal Navy submarines launched several Tomahawk cruise missiles. Within a few days, most Taliban training sites were severely damaged and air defenses destroyed. The campaign focused on command, control, and communications targets. The front facing the Northern Alliance held, and no battlefield successes were achieved there. The United States dropped 1500 munitions in the first week of bombing. They also began airdropping food and medical supplies to civilians in Northern Alliance-controlled territory. By the second week of the campaign most of the preplanned targets had been destroyed.

On October 19, Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) teams 555 and 595, both 12-man Green Beret teams from the 5th Special Forces Group, plus Air Force Combat Controllers, were airlifted by helicopter from the Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan more than across the Hindu Kush mountains in zero-visibility conditions by MH-47E Chinook helicopters from 2nd Battalion 160th SOAR. ODA 555 went to the Panjshir Valley to link up with the NALT and Fahim, and ODA 595 went to the Darya Suf Valley, just south of Mazar-i-Sharif, to work with Dostum.

In mid-October, A and G squadron of the British 22nd SAS Regiment, reinforced by members of the Territorial SAS regiments, deployed to northwest Afghanistan in support of Enduring Freedom. They conducted largely uneventful reconnaissance under the code-name Operation Determine, none of which resulted in enemy contact. They traveled in Land Rover Desert Patrol Vehicles and modified all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). Both squadrons returned to their barracks in the UK after two weeks.

Objective Rhino and Gecko

On the night of October 19, simultaneous with the Special Forces entering the country, 200 Rangers from the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, parachuted onto Objective Rhino—a landing strip south of Kandahar. The landing strip had been built as part of an Emirati hunting camp. Before the Rangers dropped, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and AC-130 gunships bombed and strafed the site, meeting the resistance of only one Taliban fighter. The Rangers provided security while a forward arming and refuelling point_observation_plane_flying_overhead._No_US_casualties_were_suffered_in_the_operation_itself_(two_Rangers_received_minor_injuries_in_the_jump),_but_two_Rangers_assigned_to_a_ MC-130s,_to_refuel_aircraft_flying_to_the_next_objective._The_mission_was_filmed_by_combat_cameramen_and_a_Lockheed_P-3_Orion">P-3C_Orion_

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