{"id":2054,"date":"2021-07-08T12:29:15","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T12:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=2054"},"modified":"2021-07-08T12:49:16","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T12:49:16","slug":"the-us-war-in-afghanistan-is-over-this-is-how-it-began-and-what-it-left-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=2054","title":{"rendered":"The US war in Afghanistan is over. This is how it began and what it left behind"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With American and NATO troops having all but departed Afghanistan after 20 years of war, the country is still riven by internal conflict.<\/p>\n

The United States descended on Afghanistan and its Taliban government in 2001 in the wake of the 9\/11 attacks by Al Qaeda, which had sought sanctuary in the country.<\/p>\n

Now at the end of the war, this is a look back at how it\u00a0began, the complications that arose,\u00a0<\/strong>and how it came to an ignominious end.<\/p>\n

September 11, the trigger<\/h4>\n

On October 7, 2001 \u2013\u00a0less than a month after the September 11 attacks that killed about 3,000 people in the US \u2013 then-president George W\u00a0Bush launched\u00a0Operation Enduring Freedom\u00a0in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The ruling Islamist Taliban had been sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda movement, which carried out the attacks in the US.<\/p>\n

The operation opened\u00a0a military front in the US “war on terrorism” and within weeks, US-led forces overthrew the Taliban, who had been in power since 1996.<\/p>\n

A month later, about 1,300\u00a0American soldiers were on the ground,\u00a0rising to almost 10,000 the next year.<\/p>\n

How the Taliban rode it out<\/h4>\n

In 2003, US forces waded into another conflict, the Iraq War, to oust dictator Saddam Hussein.<\/p>\n

With US attention diverted, the\u00a0fragmented Taliban and other Islamist groups regrouped in their strongholds in the south and east \u2013\u00a0from where they could\u00a0easily travel between their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas \u2013\u00a0and launched an insurgency.<\/p>\n

In 2008, US command in Afghanistan called\u00a0for more manpower and\u00a0Mr\u00a0Bush sent\u00a0additional soldiers, bringing the total to 48,500 US troops deployed.<\/p>\n

Two years later, Barack Obama\u00a0had boosted the US presence there to about 100,000 troops, despite being\u00a0elected president after a campaign that promised to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.<\/p>\n

The objective of the push was\u00a0to crush the expanding Taliban insurgency and strengthen Afghan\u00a0institutions.<\/p>\n

Continue read on: https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2021-07-07\/afghanistan-war-troop-withdrawal-us-nato-taliban\/100272542<\/p>\n

Source: ABC,\u00a0AP: (Rahmat Gul)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With American and NATO troops having all but departed Afghanistan after 20 years of war,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2058,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[41,4,42],"tags":[51,52],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/download-2.jpg",275,183,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Politics<\/a> Stories<\/a> World<\/a>","tag_info":"World","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2054"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2059,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2054\/revisions\/2059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}