United States invasion of Afghanistan

Taliban (red) and Northern Alliance (blue) control over Afghanistan in 2000.

In 1996, with military support from Pakistan and financial support from Saudi Arabia, the Taliban seized Kabul and founded the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.[21] 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.[22]

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.[23] 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.[24] Like the Taliban,[25] Massoud also raised money by trafficking drugs.[26] By 2001, the Taliban controlled 80% of the country, with the Northern Alliance confined to the country's northeast corner.[27]

In 1996, bin Laden was expelled from Sudan, where he had been staying, and arrived in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.[28] He had founded al-Qaeda in the late 1980s to continue jihad after the end of the Soviet–Afghan War.[29] He moved al-Qaeda's operations to eastern Afghanistan and developed a close relationship with the Taliban.[30] In 2000, however, Mullah Omar visited bin Laden and forbade him from attacking the United States while he was a guest of the Taliban.[31] During the 1990s the CIA and Delta Force[32] planned several operations to kill or capture bin Laden, but did not receive the order to proceed from President Bill Clinton.[33]

During the early Clinton administration, the US had no clear policy toward Afghanistan.[34] US policy changed after the 1998 US embassy bombings, which provoked President Clinton to order missile strikes on militant training camps in Afghanistan.[35] Subsequently, bin Laden was indicted for his involvement in the embassy bombings. In 1999 both the US and the United Nations enacted sanctions against the Taliban via 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.[36] The only collaboration between Massoud and the US at the time was an effort with the CIA to trace bin Laden following the 1998 bombings.[37] The US provided no support to Massoud for the fight against the Taliban.[38]

A change in US policy was effected in early September 2001.[39] The Bush administration agreed on a plan to start supporting Massoud. A meeting of top national security officials on September 10 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 in an attempt to overthrow the Taliban.[40]

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.[41] The assassination was a gift from bin Laden to the Taliban, and left the Taliban poised to achieve total control over Afghanistan.[42] Mohammed Fahim became the new leader of the Northern Alliance.[43] The Alliance had 15,000–20,000 fighters distributed across five locations.[3] On the Kabul front, Taliban and Northern Alliance forces faced each other from trenches across the Shomali Plain.[3] 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,[44] and Ismael Khan was near Herat.[45]

The Taliban's military commander in the north was Mohammad Fazl.[46] The Taliban military consisted of approximately 45,000 Afghans and 2,700 foreign fighters,[3] which included al-Qaeda's 055 Brigade.[47] According to military analyst Ali Jalali, the 055 Brigade was only 400–600 strong, but its ties to bin Laden made it politically important.[47] The foreign fighters included Arabs as well as Kashmiris, Chechens, Uzbeks, and Uyghurs.[47] Several hundred officers from Pakistan's ISI were stationed in Afghanistan advising the Taliban.[46] By mid-October, approximately 10,000 Pakistani volunteers crossed the border to augment the Taliban's forces.[48] The volunteers were mostly madrasa students, some as young as 14.[47]

Both sides primarily used Russian military equipment. The Northern Alliance had 14.5mm heavy machine guns, Russian artillery, T-72 tanks,[49] and BMP-1 armored vehicles retrofitted with rocket pods from Soviet combat helicopters.[50] Dostum's Uzbeks used horses for transportation.[46] The Northern Alliance had 18 helicopters and three fixed-wing planes, which they used mostly for logistical purposes.[25] The Taliban's equipment was similar to that of the Northern Alliance, and they also had Stinger missiles that had been donated by the United States to the mujahideen during the Soviet–Afghan War.[51] They relied on pickup trucks for mobility and operated as a "motorized light force."[52] They had about 40 combat aircraft, operated by ex-PDPA pilots.[53]

Both sides had a history of human rights abuses. For example, Uzbeks and Hazaras had "massacred hundreds of Taliban prisoners and killed Pashtun villagers in the north and around Kabul",[54] and the Taliban killed 5,000–8,000 civilians after they captured Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998.[54] Afghanistan also faced a serious humanitarian crisis in 2001 due to a 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.[55]

Ground Zero in New York following the attacks of September 11, 2001

On the evening of September 11 President Bush stated that the United States would respond to the attacks and would "make no distinction between those who planned these acts and those who harbor them."[62] On September 14, 2001, Congress passed legislation titled Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists, authorizing the use of the military against al-Qaeda and its supporters.[63] President Bush addressed Congress on September 20 and demanded the Taliban deliver bin Laden and al-Qaeda or face war.[58]

In an address to a joint session of the US Congress on September 20, 2001, US President George W. Bush demanded that the Taliban deliver Osama bin Laden and destroy bases of al-Qaeda.

In the days and weeks immediately following 9/11, Osama bin Laden repeatedly denied having any role.

On the same day, a grand council of 300 or 700[64] Muslim clerics from across Afghanistan, which had convened to decide bin Laden's fate, issued a fatwa recommending that the Islamic Emirate ask bin Laden to leave their country.[58] The fatwa went on to warn that should the United States invade Afghanistan, jihad would become obligatory until the invaders were expelled.[58] On September 21, Mullah Omar rejected both Bush's demands and the advice of the council, and again denied that bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.[58]

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.[65] The two met in Quetta on September 15 and October 2,[61] but did not reach an agreement.[66] On October 4 the British government publicly released a document summarizing the evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks.[67] Also on October 4, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) invoked Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty for the first time in its history.[68] Article V states that an attack on one member of the alliance is to be considered an attack on all members.[68] On October 7, as the US aerial bombing campaign began, President Bush stated, "Full warning has been given, and time is running out."[69]

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

In 2001, the Defense Department did not have a pre-existing plan for an invasion of Afghanistan.[70] Because of this, 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.[71] Bush met with his cabinet at Camp David on September 15 for a war planning session.[72] 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.[73] The CIA also presented its war plan, which involved inserting paramilitary teams to work with the Northern Alliance and, eventually, American Special Forces units.[74] The planners believed that they had to minimize the use of American ground forces, in order to avoid provoking the Afghan population as the British and Russians had done.[75] On September 17 Bush approved the CIA plan and directed the military to develop a detailed war plan based on the third option from Camp David.[76] Military planning efforts were hindered because the Taliban had little physical infrastructure that the military could target.[77] Early plans by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) included poisoning the Afghan food supply and raiding a fertilizer factory which JSOC believed could be used to make chemical weapons.[78]

The military completed its war plan by September 21.[79] The campaign was initially called Operation Infinite Justice. This name was deemed culturally insensitive because in Islamic theology only God's justice is infinite, so Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld changed the name to Operation Enduring Freedom.[80]

The American objectives were to destroy al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban regime from power.[81] However, the US sought to prevent the Northern Alliance from taking control of Afghanistan, since they believed this would alienate the country's Pashtun majority.[82] 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 US-Pakistan relations.[83]

US Army Special Forces and US Air Force Combat Controllers with Northern Alliance troops on horseback

US Air Force Combat Controllers in combat during the invasion of Afghanistan, c. September 2001.

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).[84]

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).[84] 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 while 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.[85] 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.[85] 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 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.[86]

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 had the responsibility of managing civil affairs and humanitarian efforts.[87]

On September 26, fifteen days after 9/11, the US covertly inserted (via CIA-piloted Mi-17 helicopter)[88] 10[lower-alpha 1] members of the CIA into the Panjshir Valley, Massoud's stronghold.[91] The CIA mission was led by Gary Schroen and designated the Northern Afghanistan Liaison Team, known by the call-sign 'Jawbreaker'.[92] In addition to specialized human assets, the team brought a metal case containing $3 million in $100 bills to buy support.[88] Jawbreaker linked up with General Mohammed Fahim, commander of the Northern Alliance forces in the Panjshir Valley, and prepared the way for the introduction of Army Special Forces into the region.[93] 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.[94] In order to allow fixed-wing aircraft to land in the area, the team refurbished an airstrip at Gulbahar that had been built by the British in 1919.[95]

On September 28, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw approved the deployment of MI6 officers to Afghanistan, utilising people involved with the mujahideen in the 1980s, who had language skills and regional expertise. At the end of the month, a handful of MI6 officers with a budget of $7 million 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 they could to change sides or leave the fight.[96] Two more CIA teams arrived soon afterwards, operating near Herat and Mazar-i-Sharif.[91]

A Tomahawk cruise missile is launched from the USS Philippine Sea in a strike against al-Qaeda training camps and Taliban military installations in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001

AH-1W "Super Cobra" helicopters take off from USS Peleliu in the North Arabian Sea on October 13, 2001

On October 7, the US began military operations in Afghanistan with air strikes on 31 targets across the country.[97] Most of the Taliban's outdated SA-2 and SA-3 surface to air missiles, as well as its radar and command units, were destroyed on the first night along with the Taliban's small fleet of MIG-21s and Su-22s.[98] On the same night the CIA conducted the first-ever air strike with a Predator drone.[99] The Predator was loitering over Mullah Omar's house, and followed several men who left the house.[100] 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.[101] 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 due to the risk of collateral damage and uncertainty over whether Omar was really there.[102] The CIA fired the Predator's Hellfire missile at a truck outside in order to draw the men out; the men left the school, but Omar escaped.[103]

Training camps and Taliban air defenses were bombarded by US aircraft over the next several days, including 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 were 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.[104] They also began airdropping food and medical supplies.[104] By the second week of the campaign most of the preplanned targets had been destroyed.[104]

On October 19,[91] 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 300 kilometers (190 mi) across the 16,000 feet (4,900 m) 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.[105]

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 Operation Enduring Freedom. They conducted largely uneventful reconnaissance tasks under the code-name Operation Determine. None of these tasks resulted in enemy contact. They traveled in Land Rover Desert Patrol Vehicles (known as Pinkies) and modified all terrain vehicles (ATVs). After a fortnight, both squadrons returned to their barracks in the UK.[106]

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.[107] The landing strip had been built as part of an Emirati hunting camp.[108] Before the Rangers dropped, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers and AC-130 gunships struck the site with preparatory fires.[107] The only resistance on the objective was one Taliban fighter.[107] The Rangers provided security while a forward arming and refuelling point (FARP) was established using fuel bladders from MC-130s, to refuel aircraft flying to Objective Gecko.[107] The mission was filmed by combat cameramen and a P-3C Orion observation plane flying overhead.[109] No casualties were suffered in the operation itself (two Rangers received minor injuries in the jump),[109] but two Rangers assigned to a CSAR element supporting the mission were killed when their MH-60L helicopter crashed at a temporary staging site in Dalbandin, Pakistan. The helicopter crashed due to a brownout.[110]

At the same time, a squadron of Delta Force operatives supported by Rangers from Task Force Sword conducted an operation outside of Kandahar at Mullah Omar's residential compound, which was designated Objective Gecko.[111] Four MH-47E helicopters took off from the USS Kitty Hawk (which was serving as a SOF base) in the Indian Ocean carrying 91 soldiers. The assault teams were drawn from Delta, while teams from the Rangers secured the perimeter and occupied blocking positions. Before the soldiers were inserted, the target area was softened up by preparatory fire from AC-130s and MH-60L Direct Action Penetrators.[112] The assaulters met no resistance on target and there was no sign of the Taliban leader, so they searched the target location for intelligence, while their helicopters landed at Rhino to refuel at the newly established FARP.[113] The next day, the Pentagon showed the video footage from Objective Rhino at a press conference and distributed it to news organizations.[114] Since intelligence prior to the missions had indicated that both objectives were empty, the primary reason for the missions was to have a psychological effect on the Taliban.[112] According to former Delta Force officer Peter Blaber, the JSOC commander Dell Dailey "believed that if we raided empty targets in Afghanistan and filmed the raids for the world to see...we would have some kind of morale-breaking effect on the enemy."[115]

Examples of the US propaganda pamphlets dropped over Afghanistan

The Green Berets of ODA 595 split into two elements, Alpha and Bravo. Alpha rode on horseback with General Dostum to his headquarters to plan an assault on Mazar-i-Sharif. Bravo was tasked with clearing the Darya Suf Valley of Taliban and to travel into the Alma Tak Mountains to conduct reconnaissance.[116] Dostum and General Mohammad Atta had been fighting the Taliban in the Darya Suf Valley throughout the summer and had gradually lost ground.[117] The valley ran from north to south and Dostum had established his headquarters near the village of Dehi, 60 miles south of Mazar-i-Sharif, because the rugged terrain prevented the Taliban's tanks from moving that far into the valley.[118]

On October 21, the Alpha element of ODA 595 guided in the first Joint Direct Attack Munition bomb from a B-52, impressing Dostum.[119] As part of its operations, the Americans beamed in radio broadcasts in both Pashto and Dari calling al-Qaeda and the Taliban criminals who were not proper Muslims and promising US$25 million to anyone who would provide information leading to the whereabouts of bin Laden.[120]

On October 23, the anti-Taliban Pashtun leader Abdul Haq entered Afghanistan with about 20 supporters and tried to raise a revolt against the Taliban in Nangarhar.[121] Haq was one of the most famous commanders of the anti-Soviet jihad, during which he had been wounded sixteen times and had lost a foot.[122] The Taliban captured and executed him.[121]

On October 25, ODA 585 infiltrated an area near Kunduz to work alongside the warlord Burillah Khan.[105] The same night, three Delta Force operators flew into the Panjshir and began working with the CIA Jawbreaker team to plan an important hostage rescue mission.[123] In early August 2001 the Taliban had imprisoned eight employees of a Christian aid organization named Shelter Now on charges of proselytizing.[124] The prisoners were held in Kabul and included two Americans, Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry.[124] They faced the death penalty if convicted.[123] Since its arrival in Afghanistan the CIA team had been using Northern Alliance intermediaries to contact Taliban officials and attempted to bribe them to release the prisoners, without success.[123] Delta Force specialized in hostage rescue and now began planning to infiltrate Kabul with 50–60 operators disguised as an al-Qaeda convoy to extract the prisoners.[125] Planning and rehearsal for the mission, which also included an element from Seal Team Six, continued for the next three weeks, but execution was delayed because the Taliban frequently moved the Shelter Now employees between two prisons in Kabul.[126]

At the beginning of November, US aircraft shifted from attacking strategic targets to striking the Taliban front lines. On November 2, ODA 553 inserted into Bamyan and linked up with General Karim Khalili's forces; ODA 534 was also inserted into the Balkh River Valley after being delayed by weather for several nights, near Dostum and ODA 595. Its role was to support General Atta in a drive on Mazar-i-Sharif, coordinated with Dostum.[127] Bravo team of ODA 595 conducted airstrikes in the Darya Suf Valley, cutting off and destroying Taliban reinforcements and frustrating Taliban attempts to relieve their embattled forces in the north. Cumulatively, the near constant airstrikes had begun to have a decisive effect and the Taliban began to withdraw toward Mazar-i-Sharif.[120] Dostum's forces and Alpha team of ODA 595 followed, working their way north through the valley. On November 5, Dostum and Atta began a coordinated assault on the village of Baluch.[128] Dostum prepared his men to follow a bombing run from a B-52 with a cavalry charge, but one of Dostum's lieutenants misunderstood an order and sent 400 Uzbek horsemen charging toward the Taliban lines as the bomber made its final approach. The bomb landed just in time on the Taliban positions and the cavalry charge succeeded in breaking the Taliban defenses.[129] Dostum and Atta then entered the Balkh Valley and continued towards Mazar-i-Sharif.[130]

Special Forces soldiers alongside Northern Alliance fighters west of Kunduz, November 2001

On the Shomali Plain, ODA 555 and the CIA Jawbreaker team attached to Fahim Khan's forces began calling in airstrikes on entrenched Taliban positions at the southeastern end of the former Soviet air base at Bagram Airfield. The Green Berets set up an observation post in a disused air traffic control tower and guided in two BLU-82 Daisy Cutter bombs which caused heavy Taliban casualties.[127] On November 8, ODAs 586 and 594 were infiltrated into Afghanistan in MH-47s and picked up on the Afghan/Tajik border by CIA-flown MI-17s. ODA 586 deployed to Kunduz with the forces of General Daoud Khan and ODA 594 deployed into the Panjshir to assist the men of ODA 555.[131]

US Army Special Forces upon arriving in Mazar-i-Sharif with Northern Alliance fighters on November 10.

Mazar-i-Sharif was important because it is the home of the Shrine of Ali, a sacred Muslim site, and because it is a transportation hub with two major airports and a bridge leading into Uzbekistan.[132] Taking the city would enable humanitarian aid to alleviate a looming food crisis, which threatened more than six million people with starvation. Many of those in most urgent need lived in rural areas to the south and west of Mazar-i-Sharif. Dostum and Atta fought their way up the Balkh Valley and on November 8 they reached the Tanghi Pass, the gateway between the valley and Mazar-i-Sharif.[133][134] The pass was heavily defended but the Northern Alliance seized it on November 9,[134] triggering a Taliban retreat from Mazar-i-Sharif.[135] The Northern Alliance entered the city on November 10.[136]

The fall of the city was a "major shock",[137] since CENTCOM had originally believed that it would remain in Taliban hands well into the following year.[138] US Army Civil Affairs Teams from the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion and Tactical Psychological Operations Teams from the 4th Psychological Operations Group were immediately deployed to Mazar-i-Sharif to begin reconstruction.[139]

On November 10, operators from C squadron Special Boat Service inserted via two C-130s into the recently captured Bagram Airfield and caused a political quandary with the Northern Alliance leadership, which claimed the British had failed to consult them on the deployment.[106][140] The Northern Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah considered the uninvited arrival to be a violation of sovereignty, and complained to the head of the CIA field office, threatening to resign if the British did not withdraw. The British government had alerted the deputy head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan that they were deploying troops to Bagram, albeit on short notice. Arriving on the first flight, Brigadier Graeme Lamb, then the Director Special Forces, simply ignored Abdullah and drove to the Panjshir Valley, where he paid his respects to Ahmad Shah Massoud's grave and held talks with Northern Alliance leaders. The British Foreign Secretary tried to reassure the Northern Alliance that the deployment was not a vanguard of a British peacekeeping army, but Northern Alliance leaders did not believe them; with the threat of the Northern Alliance opening fire on incoming troop transports, the deployment was put on hold.[140]

On November 11, in the central north of Afghanistan, ODA 586 was advising General Daoud Khan outside the city of Taloqan and coordinating a batch of preparatory airstrikes when the General surprised everyone by launching an impromptu massed infantry assault on the Taliban holding the city. Before the first bomb could be dropped, the city fell.[139]

On November 12, the US tracked and killed al-Qaeda's number three, Mohammed Atef, with an air strike in Kabul.[141] That day the Taliban decided to abandon Kabul and regroup in Jalalabad and Kandahar.[142] Taliban forces evacuated the city by the end of November 13,[142] and Northern Alliance forces (supported by ODA 555)[143] arrived the following afternoon and took control of the city.[144] During their retreat the Taliban took the Shelter Now prisoners with them but abandoned them in a prison in Ghazni on November 13.[145] Anti-Taliban Afghans freed the prisoners, who found a satellite phone and used it to call the American embassy in Pakistan.[145] SEAL Team Six used Chinook helicopters to extract the prisoners from Ghazni on the night of November 14 and take them to Pakistan.[146]

The fall of Kabul started a cascading collapse of Taliban positions. Within 24 hours, all Afghan provinces along the Iranian border had fallen, including Herat. Local Pashtun commanders and warlords had took over throughout northeastern Afghanistan, including Jalalabad. Taliban holdouts in the north fell back to the city of Kunduz, while others retreated to their heartland in southeastern Afghanistan around Kandahar.[142]

In the midst of the retreat Delta Force conducted a high-altitude, low-opening (HALO) jump northeast of Kandahar to call in airstrikes on targets retreating from Kabul.[147] This was the first combat HALO jump conducted at night by the United States since the Vietnam War.[147] By November 13, al-Qaeda and Taliban forces, possibly including bin Laden, were concentrating in Tora Bora, 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Jalalabad. Nearly 2,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters fortified themselves in positions within bunkers and caves. On November 16 the US began bombing the mountain redoubt. Around the same time, CIA and Special Forces operatives were at work in the area, enlisting local warlords and planning an attack.[148]

On November 13, the 75th Ranger Regiment carried out its second combat parachute drop into Afghanistan.[149] A platoon-sized Ranger security element, including a team from the Ranger Reconnaissance Detachment and accompanied by eight Air Force Special Tactical operators, parachuted into a dry lake bed southwest of Kandahar and secured the area.[150] A pair of MC-130 cargo planes then landed in the lake bed and deposited four AH-6J Little Bird helicopters from the 160th SOAR.[151] The Little Birds flew to a Taliban compound near Kandahar codenamed Objective Wolverine and destroyed it.[152] They returned to the lake bed to rearm and refuel, then launched another strike against a second site called Objective Raptor.[153] After the second strike they went back to the lake bed, loaded onto the MC-130s and flew back to Oman.[153] Several nights later, beginning on October 16th, a series of missions codenamed Operation Relentless Strike took place. On the first night the Rangers drove modified HMMWVs and Land Rovers to secure a remote desert airstrip.[154] The Little Birds then flew in on MC-130s and conducted a search and destroy mission along Highway 1.[155] The Little Birds conducted similar search and destroy missions over the next several nights.[156]

US Army Special Forces (ODA 574) with Hamid Karzai in Kandahar province

On November 14, ODA 574 and Hamid Karzai inserted into Uruzgan Province via 4 MH-60K helicopters[143] with a small force of guerrillas.[157] Karzai was the leader of the Pashtun Popalzai tribe and had been an enemy of the Taliban since they assassinated his father in 1999.[121] He had entered Afghanistan with three other men on October 9 but was almost killed by the Taliban and extracted by the CIA on November 4.[157] Once he returned he began to move towards the town of Tarinkot. In response to the approach of Karzai's force, the inhabitants of the town of Tarinkot revolted and expelled their Taliban administrators.[158] Karzai traveled to Tarinkot to meet with the town elders.[158] While he was there, the Taliban marshaled a force of 300–500 men to retake the town.[157] Karzai's small force plus the American contingent deployed in front of the town to block their advance. Relying heavily on close air support, the American/Afghan force managed to halt the Taliban advance and drive them away from the town.[159]

The defeat of the Taliban at Tarinkot was an important victory for Karzai,[160] who used the victory to recruit more men to his fledgling guerrilla band. His force would grow in size to a peak of around 800 men.[161] Soon afterwards, they left Tarinkot and began advancing on Kandahar.[162]

Task Force Dagger's attention focused on the last northern Taliban stronghold, Kunduz.[143] As the bombardment at Tora Bora grew, the Siege of Kunduz was continuing. General Daoud and ODA 586 had initiated massive coalition airstrikes to demoralize the Taliban defenders.[143]After 11 days of fighting and bombardment, Taliban fighters surrendered to Northern Alliance forces on November 23. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived to evacuate intelligence and military personnel who had been aiding the Taliban's fight against the Northern Alliance. The airlift is alleged to have evacuated up to five thousand people,[163] including Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.[164]

The SAS played a small role in the early stages of the war because American SOF commanders guarded targets for their own units. It took political intercession from Prime Minister Tony Blair for the SAS to be given a direct-action task – the destruction of an al-Qaeda-linked opium plant. The facility was located 400 km (250 mi) southwest of Kandahar and defended by between 80–100 foreign fighters, with defenses consisting of trench lines and several makeshift bunkers. The SAS were ordered to assault the facility in full daylight, because CENTCOM would not provide air support for a night raid. The timing meant that the squadrons could not carry out a detailed reconnaissance of the site prior to the assault. Despite these factors, the commanding officer of 22 SAS accepted the mission. The target was a low priority for the US and probably would have been destroyed from the air if the British had not argued for a larger role in Afghanistan.[165]

The mission began in November 2001, with an 8-man patrol from G Squadron's Air Troop performing the regiments first wartime HALO parachute jump. The patrol landed at a desert location in Registan to assess its suitability as an improvised airstrip for the landing of the main assault force in C-130 Hercules cargo aircraft. The Air Troop advance team confirmed the site was suitable and later that day the C-130s landed and disembarked the SAS in their vehicles. The assault force was composed of operators from A and G squadron driving 38 Land Rover Desert Patrol Vehicles, two logistics vehicles, and eight Kawasaki dirt bikes. On the way to the target one Land Rover broke down due to an engine problem and was left behind with its crew (they were picked when the assault force exfilled). The assault force drove to a release point and split into two elements. A squadron was the assault force and G Squadron provided fire support.[166]

The assault began with a preparatory airstrike. Following this, A Squadron dismounted from their vehicles and closed in on the target on foot. G Squadron provided covering fire with heavy weapons and air support flew sorties until they ran out of munitions; on a final pass, a US Navy F-18 Hornet strafed a bunker with its 20mm cannon, which narrowly missed several members of G Squadron.[167] When the A Squadron assault force reached the objective, they cleared the HQ building and gathered all intelligence materials they could find. The mission lasted four hours and four SAS operators were wounded; the operation was the largest British SAS operation in history.[168]

On November 25, as Taliban prisoners were moved into Qala-i-Jangi fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif, a few Taliban attacked their Northern Alliance guards. This incident triggered a revolt by 600 prisoners, who soon seized the southern half of the fortress, including an armory stocked with an array of AK-47s, RPGs and crew-served weapons. Johnny Micheal Spann, one of two CIA SAD operatives at the fortress who had been interrogating prisoners, was killed, marking America's first combat death.[169]

The other CIA operator, Dave Olson,[170] managed to make contact with CENTCOM who relayed his request for assistance to SOF troops at a TF Dagger safe house in Mazar-i-Sharif. The safe house housed members of Delta Force, some Green Berets and a small team from M squadron SBS. A quick reaction force was immediately formed of whoever was in the safe house at the time: a headquarters element from 3rd Battalion, 5th SFG, a pair of USAF liaison officers, a handful of CIA SAD operators and the SBS team. The 8-man SBS team arrived in Land Rovers and the Green Berets and CIA operatives arrived in minivans and began engaging the prisoners, fighting a pitched battle to suppress the uprising; as a result, Olson managed to escape. Following this the operators turned their attention to recovering Spann's body. Over the course of four days the battle continued, with Green Berets calling in multiple airstrikes on the Taliban prisoners. During one CAS mission a Joint Direct Attack Munition was misdirected and hit the ground close to the Coalition and Northern Alliance positions, wounding five Green Berets and four SBS operators.[171]

AC-130 gunships kept up aerial bombardments throughout the night. The following day (November 27) the siege was broken when Northern Alliance T-55 tanks were brought into the central courtyard to fire shells into several block houses containing Taliban. Fighting continued sporadically throughout the week as the last remnants were mopped up by Dostrum's Northern Alliance forces. The combined Green Beret-SBS team recovered Spann's body.[172]

The revolt ended on December 1 after seven days of fighting.[173] 86 Taliban survived,[173] and around 50 Northern Alliance soldiers were killed. The revolt was the final combat in northern Afghanistan.

ODA 574 and Hamid Karzai began moving on Kandahar, gathering fighters from friendly local Pashtun tribes. At the strategic Sayd-Aum-Kalay Bridge they fought for two days with the Taliban, eventually seizing it with the help of US airpower and opening the road to Kandahar.[161]

ODA 583 had infiltrated the Shin-Narai Valley southeast of Kandahar to support Gul Agha Sherzai, the former governor of Kandahar. The ODA had established covert observations posts by November 24, which allowed them to call in fire on Taliban positions.[174] By the end of November, Kandahar was the Taliban's last stronghold, and was coming under increasing pressure.[121] Nearly 3,000 tribal fighters under Karzai[121] and 350 under Sherzai[175] pressured Taliban forces from the east and cut off northern supply lines to Kandahar.

Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit march to a security position after seizing Camp Rhino from the Taliban, November 25, 2001

Meanwhile, nearly 1,000 US Marines ferried in by CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters and C-130s set up a Forward Operating Base known as Camp Rhino in the desert south of Kandahar on November 25 (Camp Rhino was located at Objective Rhino, the same airstrip seized by the Rangers on October 19).[176] On November 26, 15 Taliban armored vehicles approached the base and were attacked by helicopter gunships, destroying many of them.[177]

On December 5, a 2,000 lb GPS-guided bomb landed among the Green Berets from ODA 574, killing 3 members and wounding the rest of the team. Over 20 of Karzai's militia were also killed and Karzai himself was slightly wounded. A Delta Force unit that had been operating nearby on a classified reconnaissance mission arrived in their Pinzgauers and secured the site, while Delta medics treated the wounded Green Berets.[161]

On December 6, Karzai was informed that he would be the next president of Afghanistan. He also negotiated the successful surrender of both the remaining Taliban forces and the city of Kandahar.[178] Karzai's militia began their final push to clear the city.[174] The US government rejected amnesty for Omar or any Taliban leaders.[179] On December 7, Sherzai's forces seized Kandahar airport and moved into the city.[174] Omar departed Kandahar and disappeared; he may have gone to Zabul, Helmand, or Pakistan.[180] Other Taliban leaders fled to Pakistan through the remote passes of Paktia and Paktika.[180]

In early December, as the US invasion was almost over, 7,500 Taliban prisoners were transported from Kunduz to Sheberghan prison by Junbish-i Milli, a group led by Dostum. Hundreds to 3,000 of the Taliban prisoners suffocated in the overcrowded metal shipping containers on trucks or were shot dead in an incident known as the Dasht-i-Leili massacre. Some were shot dead when guards shot air holes into the containers. The dead were buried in graves believed to be in the Dasht-i-Leili desert just west of Sheberghan, in the Jowzjan Province.[181]

US Army Special Forces headquarters in Nangarhar Province, November 2001

Air strikes on Tora Bora

After the fall of Kabul and Kandahar, suspected al-Qaeda members, including Bin Laden and other key leaders, withdrew to Jalalabad, Nangarhar Province. From there they moved into the Tora Bora region of the Spin Ghar (White Mountains), 20 km away from the Pakistan border, where there was a network of caves and prepared defenses used by the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War.[182] Signal intercepts and interrogation of captured Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda terrorists pointed towards the presence of significant numbers of foreign fighters and possible senior leaders in the area.[183] Instead of committing conventional forces, higher echelons of both the White House and the Pentagon decided to isolate and destroy the al-Qaeda elements in the area with the US SOF supporting locally recruited Afghan militias, due to a fear of repeating the Soviet's experience in the area.[184]

ODA 572 and a CIA team were dispatched to Tora Bora to advise eastern anti-Taliban militias under the command of two warlords: Hazrat Ali and Mohammed Zaman.[185] Hazrat Ali and Zaman distrusted each other, and during the battle their militias sometimes shot at each other.[185] Using CIA cash, some 1,000 Afghan fighters were recruited for the coming battle.[186] The leader of the CIA team was Gary Berntsen, who in November had replaced Gary Schroen as the senior CIA officer in Afghanistan.[187] On December 2 Berntsen requested a battalion of Rangers be dropped into the mountains to establish blocking positions along potential escape routes out of Tora Bora into Pakistan.[188] In addition to the Rangers, other available forces included 1,000 Marines under Brigadier General Jim Mattis in Kandahar and soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division in Uzbekistan. Franks denied Berntsen's request.[189]

From the outset of the battle, ODA 572 with its attached Combat Controller called in precision airstrikes, whilst the Afghans launched a number of poorly executed attacks on established al-Qaeda positions with limited success.[190] The militias would typically gain ground in the morning following US airstrikes but then relinquish control of those gains the same day.[191] They would also retreat to their base areas to sleep and break their fast each night, since the battle occurred during Ramadan, the month of fasting when Muslims do not eat or drink during the day.[192] With the Afghan offensive stalled and the CIA and ODA teams overstretched, Franks decided to deploy special operations soldiers from JSOC into the battle on December 9.[190]

Forty operators from A Squadron Delta Force deployed forward to Tora Bora and assumed tactical command of the battle from the CIA. With the Delta squadron were a dozen of so members of the British SBS.[193] The Delta operators were deployed in small teams embedded within the militias and sent their own operators out to search for bin Laden. Eventually, with the assistance of Green Berets and CIA operators, the militias made progress.[191] The Delta squadron commander agreed with the Jawbreaker assessment of the situation and requested blocking forces or the scattering of aerial landmines to deny mountain passes to the enemy. Since the deployment of the Ranger battalion had been denied, he requested that his operators carryout the proposed role but all his requests were denied by General Franks. On December 12, two weeks into the battle, Zaman opened negotiations with the trapped al-Qaeda and Taliban in Tora Bora. Against the wishes of the Americans and British, Zaman called a temporary truce to allow al-Qaeda to surrender.[194] This was a ruse to allow as many as several hundred al-Qaeda and members of the 055 Brigade to escape over night toward Pakistan.[195][196] According to journalist Peter Bergen, bin Laden left Tora Bora on the night of December 12 and went to Kunar Province.[197]

The following day, a handheld radio recovered from the body of a dead al-Qaeda fighter allowed members of the Delta squadron, SBS, CIA, and MI6 to hear bin laden's voice – apparently apologizing to his followers for leading them to Tora Bora and giving his blessing for their surrender – thought to be a recording addressed to the terrorists that stayed to fight a rearguard action to allow bin Laden to escape. The leader of the CIA Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora believed that two large al-Qaeda groups escaped: the smaller group of 130 jihadis escaped east into Pakistan, while the second group including bin Laden and 200 Saudi and Yemeni jihadis took the route across the mountains to the town of Parachinar, Pakistan. The Delta squadron commander believed that bin Laden crossed the border into Pakistan sometime around December 16. A Delta reconnaissance team, call-sign 'Jackal', spotted a tall man wearing a camouflage jacket with a large number of fighters entering a cave. The team called in multiple airstrikes on the presumption that it was bin Laden, but later DNA analysis from the remains did not match bin Laden's.[198] With the majority of the enemy gone, the battle came to an end on December 17.[186]

On December 20, ODA 561 was inserted into the White Mountains to support ODA 572 in gathering intelligence in the caves and to assist with recovering DNA samples from terrorist bodies.[194] US and UK forces continued searching into January, but no sign of al-Qaeda leadership emerged. An estimated 220 al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle and 52 prisoners were taken.[2] No American or British personnel were killed.[199]

In subsequent years, the military was heavily criticized for not deploying ground forces into Tora Bora to capture bin Laden.[200] According to journalist Sean Naylor, Franks opposed the idea because he was "obsessed with not repeating the Soviets' mistake of deploying large conventional formations into Afghanistan," believing that they would provoke popular resistance.[201] Another possible explanation is that his attention was elsewhere – Franks spent December 12, the day bin Laden may have escaped, briefing Secretary Rumsfeld on his plan for invading Iraq.[202] There were also logistical obstacles: airlift assets in Afghanistan were limited, so transporting a large ground force to the Spin Ghar and resupplying it was "essentially impossible," according to an official Army history.[185] However, Mattis developed a plan which he believed was logistically feasible, dropping artillery observers on the mountain passes with five days of sustainment to reduce resupply requirements.[203]

In late November 2001 the United Nations hosted the Bonn Conference.[204] The Taliban were excluded.[205] Three Afghan opposition groups participated.[206] Observers included representatives of neighboring and other involved major countries.[204] The resulting Bonn Agreement created the Afghan Interim Authority and outlined the Bonn Process that would lead towards a new constitution and a new Afghan government.[205] Following the Bonn Conference, tribal leaders and former exiles established an interim government in Kabul under Hamid Karzai.[207]

The Costs of War Project at Brown University estimated that between 1,537 and 2,375 civilians were killed during the invasion.[7] Northern Alliance casualties are unknown.[5] United States casualties were 12 military personnel and one CIA officer (Mike Spann),[4] while the Taliban suffered 8,000 to 12,000 killed.[6]

The US invasion of Afghanistan was the first phase of the 2001–2021 war in Afghanistan. On December 20, 2001, the United Nations authorized an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), with a mandate to help the Afghans maintain security in Kabul and surrounding areas.[215] For its first years ISAF consisted of 8,000 American and 5,000 coalition soldiers[216] and its mandate did not extend beyond the Kabul area.[217] In February 2002, the US detected a large concentration of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters in the eastern Shah-i-Kot Valley.[218] Coalition forces cleared the valley during Operation Anaconda in March 2002, which resulted in 8 US soldiers killed and 80 wounded.[219]

US forces established their main base at Bagram airbase just north of Kabul.[220] Kandahar airport also became an important US base, and outposts were established in eastern provinces to hunt for Taliban and al-Qaeda fugitives.[221] Following Operation Anaconda, al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters established sanctuaries on the Pakistani border, where they launched cross-border raids beginning in April 2002.[222]

In February 2002, the National Security Council met to decide whether to expand ISAF beyond Kabul. In a dispute between Powell and Rumsfeld, Rumsfeld's view that the force should not be expanded prevailed.[223] Historians later wrote that the failure of ISAF to be deployed beyond Kabul drove Karzai to offer positions within the state to potential spoilers whose activities did great harm to the state's reputation.[224] Because the rise of the insurgency was linked to grievances over governance,[225] this became a serious problem.

US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld aimed to carry out operations in Afghanistan as quickly as possible, and leave as fast as possible.[226] He thus wished to focus on kinetic counter-terrorism operations and building up a new Afghan Army.[227] In mid-2002, Rumsfeld announced that "The war is over in Afghanistan," to the disbelief of State Department, CIA, and military officials in the country. As a result, Rumsfeld downplayed the need for an Afghan army of even 70,000 troops, far fewer than the 250,000 envisaged by Karzai.[228]

Several events, taken together, in early 2002 can be seen as the ending of the first phase of the US-led war in the country. The first was the dispersal of the major groups of the Taliban and Al Qaeda after the end of Anaconda. In the United States, in February 2002 the decision was taken not to expand international security forces beyond Kabul.[223] Finally President Bush made his speech at the Virginia Military Institute on April 17, 2002, invoking the memory of General George Marshall whilst talking of Afghan reconstruction, which resulted in discussion of a 'Marshall Plan' for Afghanistan.[229] The decision against a significant expansion of international presence and development assistance was later seen by historians as a major error.[230] However, the growing commitment to Iraq was absorbing more and more resources, which in hindsight would have made committing such resources to Afghanistan impossible.[231]

According to historian Carter Malkasian, the campaign was a "striking military success".[2] The United States achieved its war aims while committing a force of only 110 CIA officers, 350 special operators, and 5,000 Rangers and Marines.[2] The model of special forces working with local fighters and calling in precision air strikes was heavily used by the United States during later operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.[2] One explanation for the rapid victory is that in Afghan culture, fighters tend to defect to the winning side once its victory is seen as inevitable;[232] as anthropologist Thomas Barfield puts it, "Just as the Taliban had come to power by persuading people that they were winners without fighting and buying the defection of wavering commanders with suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills, they lost the war in a reverse process."[233] The pattern recurred during the 2021 Taliban offensive, when the US-backed government collapsed and a resurgent Taliban captured a dozen provincial capitals in a week before it entered Kabul unopposed.[234]