26 minute read

The war in Afghanistan (2001-2021)

from Junior Project Prize - 2022/23

from Junior Project Prize - 2022/23, page 150

American Football:

A political map of Afghanistan

Although archaeologists have found evidence of human inhabitation in Afghanistan from as far back as 50,000 years ago, the first notable group of people to settle in Afghanistan were the Persians under Darius the Great in 552 BCE. Alexander the Great also led the Greeks to the land called Afghanistan today in 356 BCE. In fact, many of the foundations of modern day cities and towns are Greek. Buddhism flourished from the end of the first century CE until an Arab raid on Kandahar in 699-700 brought Islam to the land which makes up modern day Afghanistan. This was reinforced by the Turks as they gained power in India, Afghanistan and Iran. The founder of the Mongol Empire Genghis Khan invaded in the 13th century and for the next few hundred years, the piece of land today known as Afghanistan was fought over by multiple Indian and Persian empires. However, in the 18th century, a group of Pashtun tribes under Ahmad Shah Abdali defeated the Monguls and the Persians and consolidated its own empire. Throughout the 19th century Afghanistan was caught up in the Anglo-Russian power struggle. This was known as ‘The Great Game’. Britain attempted to bring Afghanistan under direct rule but was defeated in the first Anglo-Afghan war (1839-1842). Britain attempted to takeover Afghanistan again in 1878 and by 1880 Britain had taken over a significant quantity of Afghan territory and its external affairs. In order to protect its colony of India and keep Russia at bay, Britain provided weapons and an annual subsidy to Afghanistan’s rulers. One of these rulers was Abdul Rahman Khan who ruled between 1881 and 1901. He is known as the ‘Unifier of Afghanistan’. In 1893 the Durand line fixed the border with British India, however tribal areas were split, leaving half of what is now known as Afghanistan. After his death in 1901, Khan was succeeded by his son Habibullah.

Genghis Khan

After the First World War, pressure was mounting for full independence from Britain. Following Habibullah’s assassination in 1919, his son Amunullah seized the throne and declared independence. Britain was then defeated in the third Anglo-Afghan war in 1919-1921. Mohamed Zahir took power in 1933 when he was just 19 years old. However, he was controlled by his two uncles who were successive prime ministers. In 1973 the King’s cousin, Daoud staged a coup, declaring Afghanistan a republic and himself president. The USSR and the US gave lots of monetary aid to the country, $2.52 billion and $533 million respectively between 1955 and 1978. Daoud confirmed more women’s rights and Afghanistan benefited from gas and oil revenues. On the 27th of April 1978 Daoud was overthrown and killed in a communist coup, known as the Sawr Revolution led by Afghanistan’s People’s Democratic Party (PDPA). However, internal conflict split the party soon after the coup. The leaders of one faction called Parcham, meaning ‘banner’, were expelled while the other group called the Khalsa meaning ‘the masses’ which was headed by Noor Mohammed Taraki, took power. The Khalsa attacked Islam and enjoyed little popular support. Radical reforms led to local rebellions and

]soldiers defected to resistance groups. The USSR increased aid to Taraki’s regime while the USA actively supported resistance groups. The Soviets urged the Taraki regime to change its unpopular policies, but they refused. The USSR feared that the USA would take advantage of the increasing chaos, so the president of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev sent in soldiers in December 1979. He believed that Soviet troops would be able to withdraw from Afghanistan after six months. Taraki was overthrown and allegedly suffocated by party rival Hafizullah Amin, who was killed after Soviet troops entered his palace. The Soviets installed the leader of the Parcham group, Babrak Kamal, into power. He declared allegiance to Islam and reversed Taraki’s unpopular policies. However, the presence of Soviet troops in the country sparked a national uprising in Afghanistan and the Soviet forces responded by destroying livestock and agriculture to cut off supplies to the resistance. Nearly one million Afghans lost their lives to the Russian bombings of villages. The secret police organised by the KGB spread terror in urban areas but resistance grew further, and became international. Mujahidin groups, exiled in Pakistan but supported mainly by the USA, Saudi Arabia and China supported the Afghan resistance. The USA poured lots of money and weapons into the arms of Afghan resistance in order to try and make Afghanistan the Russian ‘Vietnam’. Anti-communist support also came from Pakistan and Britain. By the end of the 1980s, support from the USA and Saudi Arabia reached around $1 billion per year in total. Meanwhile between 1986 and 1990 around $5 billion worth of weapons went to the ‘holy fighters’ of the Afghan Muhahidin. The occupation of Afghanistan costed the USSR a minimum of 14,000 lives and just over $5 billion per year. The new president at the time, Mikhail Gorbachev prepared to withdraw Soviet troops and wanted to leave behind a friendly government. The head of the Afghan Intelligence Service, Dr Najibullah was installed as president. The last Soviet troops were withdrawn in February 1989, leaving one and a half million Afghans dead, five million disabled and five million refugees. The Mujahidin were able to capture large parts of Afghanistan, continuing to fight against the Russian puppet. In April 1992, they took Kabul and declared Afghanistan an Islamic state. Burhannaudin Rabbani was elected President, but a power struggle ensued as the Mujahidin victors were not united.

Commanders Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum entered Kabul to try and prevent a takeover of the city by rival warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his allies. There were four main groups who fought for control over Kabul, each receiving foreign backing from different countries. The United Nations (UN) reported that over 1,800 civilians had been killed and that 500,000 were fleeing the city. By the end of 1992 Kabul was completely devastated due to the actions of the warlords. Other cities suffered in the same way as Kabul. By 1994, at least 20,000 people had died but the warlords still refused to meet. It was at this point that a new force appeared. A small group of religious students (or ‘Taliban’ in Pashto) living near Kandahar criticised the behaviour of commanders controlling the area. This group was supported by various people in Pakistan and with this support, they launched a military campaign which aimed to create an Islamic state, based on strict Sharia law. The first city they took was Kandahar, the home of their leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in November 1994. The war-weary population put up little resistance and the Taliban imposed order and seized weapons. Their perception of Islam was extreme and harsh. Women especially and educated city- dwellers were affected the worst. The Taliban began relying on foreign fighters and torture, killings and other human rights violations became more frequent and intense.

The Taliban received lots of Pakistani and Saudi support. An estimated 100,000 Pakistanis trained and fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan between 1994 and 2001. Saudi Arabia provided funds, diplomatic support and various goods. Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi who had funded and trained Arab Mujahidin recruits during the Soviet occupation renewed his support and returned to Afghanistan in 1996. By the year 2000, the Taliban controlled about 90% of Afghan territory but were only officially recognised by Pakistan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Relations with the USA were particularly hostile.

2. Reasons the war started

The relations with the USA were hostile because the USA accused the Taliban of harbouring Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. This in tandem with international concern over the extreme oppression of women and the country’s opium production prompted two rounds of UN sanctions which shows how poor the relations were between each other. Soon after 9/11, the US National Security Council agreed that military action would most likely have to be taken against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. On the 14th of September 2001, President Bush decided to give the Taliban an ultimatum to extradite Osama bin Laden and told the Taliban to “Close immediately every terrorist training camp, hand over every terrorist and their supporters, and give the United States full access to terrorist training camps for inspection”. On the same day as Bush’s announcement, religious scholars met in Kabul and decided that bin Laden should be surrendered. On the other hand, Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban disagreed and stated: “turning over Osama would only be a disgrace for us and for Islamic thought and belief and would be a weakness”. In the end, the Taliban refused the ultimatum, saying that bin Laden was protected by the traditional Pashtun laws of hospitality. On the 4th of October, 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 their alliance is considered to be an attack on all members. On the 7th of October the US aerial bombing campaign began, this was the official start of the war.

3. Early stages of the war (2001-2008)

Even though Operation Enduring Freedom, i.e the invasion of Afghanistan had begun on the 7th of October 2001, covert operations had begun several weeks earlier. Only 15 days after 9/11, the US covertly inserted members of the CIA’s Special Activities Division into Afghanistan. They brought a metal case containing $3 million to buy support. This formed the Northern Afghanistan Liaison Team. Their job was to link up with the Northern Alliance in the Panjshir Valley to the north of Kabul. The Northern Alliance was a military alliance of groups operating between 1996 and 2001. It fought a defensive war against the Taliban regime and was mainly supported by the USA, India, Iran and Russia. In 2001, the Northern Alliance controlled less than 10% of the country and was cornered in the north-east and based in Badakhshan province. The US invasion of Afghanistan provided support to Northern Alliance troops in a two-month war against the Taliban which the Northern Alliance won. As the Taliban was forced from control of the country and the new Afghan Interim Administration was put in place, the Northern Alliance was dissolved. At the start of October, 12-man Special Forces teams began arriving in the country to work with the CIA and the Northern Alliance. Within a few weeks of the start of Operation Enduring Freedom, the Northern Alliance with the assistance from US ground and air support had captured multiple key cities from the Taliban. Two major cities captured by NATO forces were Mazar-I-Sharif and Kabul Mazar-I-Sharif was important because it is a significant transport hub with two major airports and a major supply route leading into Uzbekistan. Taking the city would enable humanitarian aid into the country to help with alleviating the food crisis. The crisis was so bad it threatened six million people with starvation. About 2,000 members of the Northern Alliance attacked Mazar-I-Sharif on horseback and using pickup trucks. The USA provided close air support to destroy Taliban vehicles. After a bloody 90-minute battle, the Taliban withdrew. Moreover, on the 12th of November 2001 the US military tracked and killed al-Qaeda’s number 3, named Mohammed Atef with an air strike in Kabul. On the very same day, the Taliban decided to completely withdraw from Kabul and regroup in Jalalabad and Kandahar. By the end of the 13th of November, Taliban forces had evacuated the city and Northern Alliance forces arrived the following afternoon and took control of the city. While they were retreating, the Taliban took the Shelter Now prisoners with them but abandoned them in a prison in Ghazni on the 13th of November. Shelter Now is an international charity, focused on bringing shelter to the vulnerable. However, anti-Taliban Afghans found a satellite phone and called the American embassy in Pakistan. SEAL Team Six was able to extract the prisoners from Ghazni on the night of the 14th of November with the help of Chinook helicopters and evacuate them to Pakistan.

Having driven the Taliban from power, the USA and its allies began building military bases close to major cities all over Afghanistan. However, most al-Qaeda and Taliban were not actually captured and fled to Pakistan or remote mountainous regions within Afghanistan. On the 20th of December 2001, the UN authorised an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with a mandate to help the Afghans maintain security in Kabul and in the surrounding areas. The mandate did not extend beyond the area in and around Kabul for the first couple of years. By February 2002, 18 countries were contributing to the ISAF. At the Bonn Conference in December 2001 in Bonn, Germany, the leader of an Afghan Interim Authority was to be chosen. Hamid Karzai was selected. Omar then disappeared leaving either for rural Afghanistan or Pakistan Most leaders and thousands of fighters went to Pakistan, although many gave up their arms. However, some Taliban fighters remained in the four rural provinces of Kandahar, Zabel, Helmand and Uruzgan. By the end of November, bin Laden was at a fortified trading camp in Tora Bora, 20km from the Pakistan border. Signal intercepts and interrogation of captured Taliban fighters suggested there were large numbers of foreign fighters and senior leaders in the area. This led to the start of the battle of Tora Bora which began on the 6th of December. CIA teams were used to advise eastern anti-Taliban militias under the command of two warlords, Hazrat Ali and Mohammed Zaman. Lots of air strikes were called to clear the mountainous camps. The Afghan soldiers were not very capable though, and on the 9th of December special forces were deployed. 40 operators from A Squadron Delta Force deployed and assumed tactical command of the battle from the CIA. 12 members of the British SBS were deployed alongside them. These soldiers looked for bin Laden but did not find him. Two weeks into the battle, on the 12th of December, Zaman begun negotiating with the trapped Taliban and al-Qaeda in Tora Bora. Zaman called a temporary truce to allow al-Qaeda to surrender. However, hundreds of al-Qaeda members were able to flee to Pakistan and bin Laden was able to flee Tora Bora during the night of the 12th of December and go to Kunar province with 200 Saudi and Yemeni jihadists. An estimated 220 al-Qaeda fighters were killed and 52 prisoners were taken. No American or British personnel were killed. The invasion of Afghanistan had been a success for the west, 10 US soldiers were killed between the start of the invasion in October 2001 and March 2002. Comparatively, this was a lot better than the Taliban did, 15,000 Taliban were killed or taken prisoner in the same time period. Special forces had done most of the work with the assistance of Afghan allies so reasonably few NATO soldiers had been required. Karzai was also liked and respected.

Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014

Following their initial success, the USA did not have an obvious goal other than finding senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. The Bush administration originally opposed nation-building but it became one of the reasons to stay. Bush made a speech in April 2002 where he made his desire to rebuild Afghanistan clear. The USA wanted to bring democracy and women’s rights to the country. The wider international community contributed to the nation-building effort in Afghanistan too. The US largely funded and supported the creation of an Afghan army. This was not done with much urgency though, as the USA believed that the Taliban did not pose much of a threat to them anymore. The army became very much an afterthought and was poorly equipped and trained which benefited the Taliban. Various Taliban members tried to negotiate with Karzai repeatedly between 2002 and 2004. The US was very against this though and did not allow the Afghan government to negotiate with the Taliban at all.

In April 2002 the first attempt to form a larger, more organised group of Taliban occurred. This happened in the south of Afghanistan. This was organised by former midlevel Taliban officials near the Helmand border in a refugee camp. The organisation was made up of 23 groups of 50 jihadists. The organisation had a total of about 1,200 jihadists in it. They operated in the four core southern provinces of Kandahar, Zabel, Uruzgan and Helmand. Operation Jacana is the codename for a series of operations carried out by coalition forces to try and flush out and destroy these Taliban groups. The operations were most notably carried out by 45 Commando, Royal Marines. The Australian SAS and US special forces also participated. The operation is named after an African bird type, Jacana which is described as being ‘shy’ and ‘easily overlooked’. Coalition forces did not come across many insurgents but the main event was on the 9th of May when Royal Marines discovered a cave system, previously used by the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Although few insurgents were found, 30 truckloads of anti-tank and antiair weapons were discovered as well as an abundance of other heavy military equipment, such as mortars. On the 10th of May the Royal Engineers destroyed most of this weaponry in the largest controlled explosion British forces had carried out since the Second World War. 45 Commando were specifically chosen for this operation due to their expertise in high-altitude warfare as they train quite regularly in the Norwegian mountains as the operation was conducted between 6,000 and 8,000 feet above sea level.

Between 2002 and 2005, the Taliban reorganised and planned a resurgence. The Taliban generated some support after Coalition troops would go on missions to hunt down jihadists with poor intelligence. The Taliban received support from this as many civilians were killed, an example of this is a wedding which was misinterpreted by Coalition forces as a Taliban meeting. Few new high level al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders were caught. Taliban recruitment increased following the repetition of Coalition mistakes. Most Taliban leaders had fled to Pakistan by 2004. Until 2005, the Taliban did not undertake many actions, meanwhile, Western attention was diverted when the US military invaded Iraq in March 2003. A very cruel and violent man, Mullah Dadullah was put in charge of the grand offensive the Taliban were planning. He introduced suicide bombing as a Taliban technique. In the summer of 2003, many Afghan government soldiers, humanitarian aid workers and Coalition soldiers were killed as a result of Taliban guerrilla attacks This was because in 2003, the Taliban leader Mullah Omar launched an insurgency against ISAF and the government. During the second half of 2003 and 2004, assassinations and kidnappings of government officials were quite frequent. The village elders also began collaborating with the Taliban in 2005 due to fear of the consequences if they did not. The Taliban also burnt down schools run by the government. In late June until mid-July 2005, US Navy Seals carried out Operation Red Wings to disrupt local Taliban led by Ahmad Shah. This was to try and bring stability to the Kunar Province for the Afghan Parliament elections scheduled for September 2005. Although the operation was a success, it came at a great cost for the Coalition, only one soldier survived and 19 died. Operation Whalers finished the job Operation Red Wings started. Taliban activity dropped a lot and Shah was wounded badly. The Taliban regained control over many villages in the south of Afghanistan by the end of 2005. This was mainly because the villages felt that they were not receiving enough support from the government and hoped that life would improve under the Taliban. The government was deemed to be weak, which it was and the police were heavily underfunded, some districts had no government presence at all. The army was also underfunded.

Insurgent attacks increased fourfold between 2002 and 2006. Afghanistan was said to be in ‘serious danger’ of falling into Taliban control, even though there were 40,000 ISAF troops in the country. From January 2006, an ISAF contingent begun to replace US troops in the south of Afghanistan. The UK formed the core of the force with the assistance of Estonia, Australia, the Netherlands and Canada. Canada wanted to deploy in Kandahar so the UK deployed in Helmand province. This was the centre of poppy production. The UK should not have deployed in Helmand province, but to another province because Pashtun Helmandis had not forgotten the Battle of Maiwand in 1880 near Helmand province. A popular rumour among locals was that the British sought to avenge their loss in the battle. This was a significant source of resistance among the Afghan population in Helmand. Local intelligence suggested that the Taliban intended to start a brutal campaign in the middle of 2006. This was ignored by politicians as the US was distracted in Iraq and Secretary of State Rumsfeld wanted to make the Afghan army cheaper rather than effective. This meant that of the 70,000 troops the Afghan army was supposed to have, only 26,000 had been properly trained. The Coalition had largely defeated the Taliban, but not entirely. On the 29th of May 2006, a US military truck in Kabul lost control and ploughed into civilian vehicles, killing one and wounding six. This led to a riot killing 20 and injuring 160. When about 400 men started throwing rocks and shooting at the soldiers, US troops had to ‘defend themselves’. This emphasised the growing hostility the Afghan people had to foreigners which had been building since 2004. In the beginning of 2007, the UK’s Ministry of Defence announced plans to increase the number of British troops in the country up to 7,700. The Shinwar massacre occurred on the 4th of March 2007 after US Marines killed 12 civilians and injured 33 more in response to a bomb ambush The Afghan National Army (ANA) was the main fighting force in the Battle of Musa Qala in December 2007, supported by British forces. The Taliban were forced out of the town successfully. A major embarrassment for NATO occurred on the 13th of June 2008. Taliban fighters showed their strength by freeing all 1200 prisoners in Kandahar jail, 400 of which were Taliban fighters.

Throughout the early years of the war, Pakistan was seen as an ally of the Taliban, even though they assisted in the capture of multiple top al-Qaeda leaders, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was the ‘principal architect of the 9/11 attacks’ in the 9/11 Commission Report. However, Pakistan provided significant funding, safe houses and political support to the Taliban harboured in the country. In the summer of 2008, President Bush authorised raids against jihadists in Pakistan. Pakistan said it would not allow foreign forces into their territory. On the 3rd of September 2008 US commandos attacked an enemy stronghold in Pakistan. Pakistan condemned the attack and called it “a gross violation of Pakistan’s territory”. On the 6th of September, Pakistan announced an indefinite disconnection of supply lines to NATO forces and even shot at NATO aircraft which entered Pakistan’s airspace on the 25th of September. Tensions between Pakistan and NATO ran high but never led to any major military actions.

4. Middle stages of the war (2009-2015)

In June 2009, a British led operation called Operation Panther’s Claw begun in Helmand province. Its aim was to secure multiple river crossings in order to establish a more permanent ISAF presence in the area. Helmand province was deemed to be “The centre of Taliban insurgency”, British forces faced heavy combat regularly from the Taliban. Panther’s Claw was conducted in “one of the main Taliban strongholds” by Lt Col Richardson. The Ministry of Defence described the operation as “one of the largest air operations in modern times”. Just over 350 soldiers from The Black Watch, Royal Regiment of Scotland were transported by 12 Chinook helicopters, accompanied by 13 other aircraft. These included Apache attack helicopters and Harriers. British troops were able to establish a strong foothold in the area and were able to kill multiple insurgents. The Ministry of Defence also announced on the 23rd of June that 1.3 tonnes of poppy seeds, used to make various synthetic opioids had been destroyed. Numerous Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) were also discovered and disabled. On the 1st of July, Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe was killed by the Taliban during Panther’s Claw while being part of an 18 vehicle convoy when an IED exploded under his BvS 10 armoured vehicle. The explosion killed one other and wounded six others. Lt Col Thorneloe is the highest ranking British officer to be killed in action since Lt Col Herbert Jones in the Falklands War. Lt Col Thorneloe was also the highest ranking British officer to die in the whole war in Afghanistan. It is also worth mentioning he was educated at Radley College and his picture is outside the chapel there.

Lt Col Thorneloe, pictured in Afghanistan

During the Kunduz Province Campaign, involving mainly the USA and Germany, a devastating NATO raid occurred on the 4th of September 2009. It happened roughly seven kilometres southwest of Kunduz where Taliban fighters hijacked civilian supply trucks. 179 people were killed, including just over 100 civilians. In June 2010, Germany announced it would be paying $5,000 dollars to each of the families of the 100 or so civilian victims. The Afghan Commerce Minister at the time, Amin Farhang, described the sum as laughable. On the 1st of December, the recently elected President Obama announced that he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. This was met with hostility from anti-war organisations. Many US cities saw protests the day after on the 2nd of December. Many protestors compared the decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan to the expansion of the Vietnam War under the Johnson administration.

Anti-war protests outside the White House on the 2nd of December 2008.

In the 2009 Afghan presidential election, Karzai’s win of 54% received accusations of fraud and so over 400,000 Karzai votes had to be disallowed. In southern Afghanistan where the Taliban held the most power, there was sporadic violence directed at security personnel and voters. As the number of US troops deployed surged, so did Special Forces operations, increasing sixfold. Furthermore, 700 air strikes took place in September 2010, versus 257 throughout the entirety of 2009. The general consensus by 2009 suggested that the war should end. Karzai wanted to make peace with the Taliban but this was undermined by Obama’s increase of American soldiers in the country In February 2010 planning began for Operation Moshtarak. This was heavily publicised by

ISAF as they wanted the Taliban there to flee. It involved 15,000 coalition troops and its goal was to capture the town of Marjah and destroy the last Taliban stronghold in the centre of Helmand province. The operation failed and even though Coalition forces originally captured the city, the Afghans and ISAF failed to set up a working government in the town. This meant that the Taliban had a successful resurgence and took over the city after NATO troops withdrew.

Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban cofounder and second in command at the time was one of the leading Taliban in favour of talks with the US and Afghan governments. Karzai’s administration held talks with Baradar in February 2010 but later in the same month he was captured in a US-Pakistani raid in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. Karzai was angry as he suspected the arrest occurred because Pakistani intelligence did not like the idea of Afghan peace talks. On the 2nd of May 2011, US officials announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed in Operation Neptune Spear, conducted by US Navy SEALs. Pakistan received lots of international scrutiny and was accused of sheltering bin Laden. Pakistan claimed however that it had been sharing intelligence with the USA on bin Laden’s compound since 2009. Almost all NATO countries announced troop reductions after the killing of bin Laden, even though Taliban attacks continued at the same rate they did in 2011. On the 11th of January 2012, Karzai and Obama met and agreed to transfer combat operations from NATO to Afghan forces by spring 2013. This left NATO in a “training, assisting, advising role”, according to Obama. He insisted that any US mission beyond 2014 would focus solely on counterterrorism operations and training.

After 13 years, the USA and the UK officially ended their combat operation in Afghanistan on the 26th of October 2014. Around 500 UK troops remained in the country in non-combat roles.But the withdrawal of troops did not mean the withdrawal of a military presence. The US troops leaving Afghanistan were replaced by private security companies hired by the USA and the UN. Many of these private security companies consisted of ex-Coalition troops which meant the US and the UK could retain a presence in combat on the ground, without risking the lives of men and women from their own forces. The Taliban was strengthened by the weaknesses of Afghan security forces, such as their lack of air power. The Taliban also capitalised on the political infighting in Kabul and the diversion of attention on Afghanistan to crises in countries such as Syria and Ukraine. On the 22nd of June 2015, the Taliban launched an attack on the National Assembly in Kabul. A car bomb was detonated and fighters attacked the building with RPGs and assault rifles.

5. Later stages of war (2016-2021)

At the start of February 2016, Taliban insurgents renewed their assault on Sangin. Therefore, the USA chose to send extra troops to boulster the Afghan forces there. However, on the 14th of March 2016, Khanneshin District in Helmand Province fell to the Taliban and Afghan troops were retreating back to urban centres in Helmand. On the 22nd of September 2016, the Afghan government announced plans to sign a draft peace deal with Herb-i-Islami, a violent militant group who attacked coalition forces. Herb-iIslami agreed to stop hostilities, cut ties to extremist groups and respect the Afghan Constitution in exchange for government recognition of the group and the removal of

UN sanctions against its leader. On the 23rd of March 2017, the town of Sangin was overrun by Taliban. During the primary phase of the war, almost a quarter of British casualties were caused by fighting for the town and hundreds of Afghans had lost their lives trying to defend it. On the 29th of April 2017, the US deployed 5,000 Marines to the Southern Helmand Province. This brought the number of US troops in the country up to 11,000.

By January 2018, the Taliban were openly active in 70% of the country. Following attacks by the Taliban such as the Kabul ambulance bombing killing 100 people, US President Donald Trump ruled out any kind of talks with the Taliban. However, on the 27th of February 2018, Afghan President Aschraf Ghani proposed unconditional peace talks with the Taliban offering to release their prisoners and recognise them as an official political party. This was the most favourable deal the Taliban had been offered since the start of the war. The Taliban carried on however with violent fighting and offensives and did not publicly respond to Ghani’s offer. By August 2019, the Taliban controlled more territory than at any point in the war since 2001. The US were also close to reaching a peace deal with the Taliban at the time and was preparing to withdraw 5,000 troops from the country. However, these negotiations were cancelled in September.

Ashram Ghani, the Afghan president from 2014 until 2021

On the 31st of March 2020, a three-person Taliban delegation arrived in the capital Kabul to discuss the release of prisoners. They were the first Taliban representatives to visit Kabul since 2001. The talks came to no avail though. The Taliban begun its last major offensive on the 1st of May 2021. In the first three months of the offensive, the Taliban made significant gains in the countryside increasing the number of districts under its control from 73 to 223. On the 13th of April the Biden administration announced the remaining 2,500 American troops would be withdrawn by the 11th of September 2021, the 20th anniversary of 9/11. On the 6th of August 2021, the Taliban captured their first provincial capital and over the next 10 days they rapidly took control of many other capitals. By the 15th of August, the Taliban had reached the outskirts of Kabul. They faced no resistance and took the city by the end of the same day. The war was even declared over by the Taliban on the same day. For the next 15 days, the Coalition forces worked tirelessly to airlift the vulnerable people out of the country, such as people who had worked as translators for the Coalition forces.

6. Effects on Afghanistan

The war killed 46,319 Afghan civilians. However, realistically the death toll is probably much higher when you count unaccounted deaths by disease, loss of access to food and water and/or other indirect consequences of the war. In fact, the IPPNW stated that 106,000-170,000 civilians have been killed as a result of the war in Afghanistan. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) attributed about 41% of civilian casualties to government and coaliton forces until 2008. This percentage lowers to 15% by 2015. Afghanistan was one of the deadliest places to be a child. 7,792 were killed during the war and 18,662 injured. Many of those injured or killed will have been the victims of IEDs or air strikes. At least 2.7 million of Afghanistan’s 38 million population have been forced to flee the country due to the war. The UN also estimates that about four million people are internally displaced in the country. The percentage of people living below the poverty line increased from 33.7% at the start of the war to 54.5% in 2016. Opium production also more than doubled between 2002 and 2019 in order to raise funds for the Taliban. This has had significant effects on particularly western countries even creating a so-called “opioid crisis” in the USA which accounted for 46,802 deaths in the USA alone. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 80% of the global opiate demand is supplied by Afghanistan, showing the war has had a major effect on countries not even fighting in the war. The Afghan military and police who fought alongside Coaltion forces are estimated to have lost between 66,000 and 69,000 soldiers. 84,191 opposition fighters lost their lives, roughly 33,000 of these deaths occurred in Pakistan.

7. Effects on the Coalition

The war killed 136 journalists and media workers, 549 humanitarian aid workers and 3,936 US contractors. 2,442 US military personnel lost their lives in the war and 1,144 other allied troops lost their lives. The Pentagon’s near-final estimate of the cost of the war in 2020 was $825 billion. Another estimate, recognised by Joe Biden puts the cost at the end of the war over $2 trillion. Since 2013, the UK’s contribution to the war in Afghanistan added up to £37 billion ($56.46 billion). In 2011, the average cost of deploying one US soldier in Afghanistan was just over $1 million per year. Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, opium production increased hugely, and by 2005, Afghanistan produced just over 80% of the world’s opium, the majority of which was processed into heroin and sold in the west. According to a report from 2018 by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstrucion (SIGAR), the USA spent $8.6 billion trying to stop Afghanistan’s drug trade since 2002 and deny the Taliban a revenue source. A SIGAR report published in May 2021 estimated that the Taliban earn 60% of their annual revenue from the drug trade, while UN officials estimate that roughly $400 million was earned by the Taliban from the trade between 2018 and 2019.

8. Conclusion/was the war worth it

In conclusion, having looked at the evidence, I cannot say that I believe the war was worth it. However, there were successes in the war for the coalition. For example, Osama bin Laden was killed, as well as many other senior Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Many more insurgents were also killled than coaltition troops. On the other hand, the coalition spent a lot of money, particulourly the USA, on a war they did not win. The coalition did not win, in fact, the Taliban now possesses and controls the entirety of Afghanistan, more than what they started with in 2001. The Coalition also lost a relatively large number of troops, not to mention the appalling number of people who were wounded or lost limbs, especially to IEDs.

9. Bibliography

• https://newint.org/features/2008/11/01/afghanistan-history

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_history_of_Afghanistan

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001%E2%80%932021)

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Alliance

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jacana

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Musa_Qala

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Panther%27s_Claw

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Watch

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Thorneloe

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Kunduz_airstrike

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan%27s_role_in_the_War_on_Terror

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Ghani_Baradar

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Omari

• http://thewarinafghanistanhchs.weebly.com/effects-of-the-war.html

• https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2021/afghanistan-visualising-impact-ofwar/index.html

• https://www.worldhistory.org/Genghis_Khan/

• https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/en/reports/context-culture/who-was-kinghabibullah-ii-a-query-from-the-literature/

• https://www.thoughtco.com/the-mujahideen-of-afghanistan-195373

• https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/30/asia/ashraf-ghani-flee-afghanistanintl/index.html

• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mohammad-Omar

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarposa_prison_attack_of_2008

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13184920

• https://www.foxnews.com/story/northern-alliance-takes-mazar-e-sharif

This article is from:

Junior Project Prize - 2022/23

by Radley College