In 2001 The United States of America launched “Operation Enduring Freedom”, also known as the Afghanistan War, in response to the September 11th attacks.
On the 11th of September 2001 the world was shocked as news came in of a commercial aircraft hitting one of the twin towers of the world trade centre, a symbol of the United States power.
The plane was American Airlines flight 11 with 92 people on bard struck the North tower at 8:46 am local time (US Eastern Daylight Time). At first it was not known if it was an accident and as the world’s media speculated, seventeen minutes later at 9:03 am another plane struck the south tower, proving that the US was under attack. The second plane was United Airlines flight 175 with 65 passengers. All flights are banned from entering New York’s airspace but this was no longer the target. At 9:37am, just another 34 minutes after the last strike, American Airlines flight 77 hits the western outer wall the pentagon, the heart of US defence, in the capital Washington DC killing all 64 on board. The final plane is crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. It is believed that the passengers aboard the United Airlines flight 93 were made aware of the horrors on the ground and were aware of their planed fait. They fought the terrorists onboard and the plane was brought down ahead of schedule and on the wrong target. 19 hijackers killed over 3,000 people on that morning and put a nation in panic. The hijackers worked for the terrorist group, al-Qaeda (meaning base in Arabic) which was led by Osama Bin Laden. This was not the first time al-Qaeda had attacked the US but this event triggered a ten year man hunt and a war in Afghanistan to bring Bin laden to justice and destroy his terrorist network.
It was known that Bin Laden was in Afghanistan with Taliban forces from where he planned and co-ordinated the September 11th attacks. The Taliban were a group of Islamic fundamentalists that took control of Afghanistan during the Afghan Civil War (27th of September 1996 – 7th of October 2001). Although the Taliban were in control of the country most of the world failed to recognise their political control due to their implementation of laws which saw the brutal treatment of women. Their views on Islamic law were in tune with Al-Qaeda who supported the Taliban in their control of the country.
After the 9/11 attacks the Taliban were ordered by US officials to hand over Bin Laden but they refused claiming that there was no evidence of his involvement. Instead they ordered Bin Laden to leave Afghanistan with the hope this would prevent US led attacks on the country. This was not the case and on the 7th of October 2001 ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ was launched which saw the US and her allies support the Taliban’s opponents in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance. It was believed by removing the Taliban from power it would prevent sympathetic terrorist organisations, like Al-Qaeda, from operating in the region. Operation Enduring Freedom marked the end of the civil war in Afghanistan and the Taliban were soon removed from power. On the 9th of October 2004 Hamid Karzai was elected President followed by parliamentary elections the following year on the 18th of September 2005 that saw many women winning seats. Taliban insurgents continue to bring instability to Afghanistan although infrastructure has much improved.
Foreign troops still remain in Afghanistan training the local security forces in defence against further insurgence.
