The Fate of Afghanistan hangs on doldrums. While one hand without any stable government, they were forced to live under the strict Taliban rules, and on the other hand, the 9/11 attack by Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda make the situation more sensitive and expose the country on the edge of another war. In my earlier parts of this series, I covered many important historical incidents and development carried out in the Afghanistan. The links to each of the parts were mentioned at the end of this post. Hope you find them interesting reading.
In this part, we will see the further development in Afghanistan and, how the #USA government retaliate post the #9/11 attacks on twin tower.
US invasion in Afghanistan
The terms between the USA and Afghanistan were not going well. It further deteriorated after the 9/11 attack. US agency becomes active immediately after the 9/11. US government talked to Taliban, and when they could not agree with the demands, then the next month on 7th October 2001, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and along with other native allies US attacked Afghanistan. In the beginning, US only did Air Strikes in the major stronghold parts of Al-Qaeda and Taliban. They had not released their troop on the ground. The operation was named, Operation Enduring Freedom. They started the operation by stopping Taliban supplies.
After few days, Air Strikes is stopped and US along with its allies, send their special forces in Afghanistan. It includes the Delta force, Navy seals and British SAS. On 7th of October the attack starts and on 9th of November, they manage to capture Mazar-i-sharif a major city of Taliban. 4th day after that on 13th November, US removes the Taliban Government from Afghanistan. In the next month, the majority area of Afghanistan like Kandhar, Kabul etc comes directly into US control. Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden and other Taliban leader they hide themselves within Afghanistan. In a way of unsent communication, Taliban is thought to be defeated.
But the main purpose for which US arrived, that is finding Osama bin Laden and capturing could not be accomplished. US had only one goal to attack on Afghanistan and that was finishing #AlQaeda and capturing Osama Bin Laden. But Osama was far away from their reach. US was looking for Osama bin Laden but along with that they were also involved in forming a government in Afghanistan. In December 2001 US formed a government in Afghanistan, which ran according to them. It was like their puppet government. They conducted proper election, and Hamid Karzai got 55.4% votes and he becomes the president of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. In this election process carried by US, Taliban were not considered to be eligible to cast their vote. Many countries condemn this but US does not agree.
In 2003, US invaded Iraq, and from here on its focus shifted into two places. Osama who executed 9/11 attack, could not be found yet nor US have any clues.
Return of Taliban
As soon as US focuses towards Iraq, Taliban starts to unite again in Afghanistan. There is a western Northern region of Pakistan which is called as FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas). Taliban started regrouping at this region and started preparing for fight against the US. Mullah Omar, who had been hiding for quite a while, his statement starts coming to light as well. This groups with the help of Haqqani network, Islamic, Movement of Uzbekistan, and Al Qaeda, they formed an alliance. They started preparing quickly against US.
On the other hand, the government that US made in Afghanistan, it is said that everyone was corrupted. In the name of development, each of the government officer was targeting that how would they take large amount of money from US. None of the works were caried out in the country. Taliban make use of the situation and spread this wrong doing in local people and propagated it very nicely. Due to this the local people developed anger as well. After that, Taliban slowly started taking the area of Afghanistan back again. This raises a question in reader mind :
when Taliban is taking the lost area, What US was doing ?
The focus of US army was on Iraq, and the army that was in Afghanistan was not sufficient. Because army was looking after the securities of main city only. Finding this as loophole in US army, #Taliban started capturing the regions which didn’t consist of US army. They started running a parallel government in those area. The biggest problem for US army faced was that Afghanistan and Pakistan borders was not sealed. So even if US attack on them, the Taliban would flee to Pakistan. US could not attack the Pakistan grounds. Slowly, US started to understand that they would have to hang on Afghanistan for a long time. This made US to take the help of its allies – UK, Australia and Canada. Each of these armies were sent to major places to take control like of Kandhar and Helmland.
Mistakes of US and Allies
Although the US and native countries took control of Afghanistan, but they committed lot of mistakes. Due to which the common Afghanistan citizen started getting against them day by day. Some of the instances that were highlighted were,
On May 2006, there was an accident involving a truck of US army, which caused the death of an Afghan citizen. When people started advancing with stones, The US army killed 20 more citizen there.
In Mar 2007, US army attacked on Taliban at Shinwar. Even there US army shots the bullets on civilians and killed 12 of them.
In September 2009, Taliban hijacked two oil tankers in Kunduz, to which NATO started air strikes. This air strikes resulted in heavy causalities, more than 179 people died and 100 of them were civilians.
In 2008, in the month of Haska US did an air strike in which by mistake bombed a wedding, in which 47 civilians including the bride were killed.
These are some of the incidents that the world comes to know. Many such incidents wee never be highlighted nor they were disclosed by US and its allies.
Wikileaks Whistle Blown
All these were going on in Afghanistan. In July 2010, in which #wikileaks leaked more than 90000 documents of US government related to Afghan war. Through lot of documents, it is known that how NATO killed the civilians and later told lies to cover those incidents. Due to this, the entire world criticized the US involvement in Afghanistan.
Due to all these the local people of Afghanistan started feeling that the US army don’t have the respect for the Aghan people and culture. When all these things were increasing day by day, many Afghanistan Government and Military started turning against US. In many areas, the US army started facing the difficulty that even the local people would start attacking them. The people of Afghanistan were very angry enraged with the US forces. The entire world started raising question on US and its allies countries intention. US and its allies attacked Afghanistan with the sole purpose to capture Osama Bin Laden and ultimately they are fighting against Taliban. Taliban wasn’t their main target.
Everything was happening fast and rapidly in Afghanistan but Osama Bin Laden was out of US radar. Then comes the date of 2nd May 2011. US army marines killed Osama Bin Laden in the raid of Abbottabad compound of Pakistan. This was huge win for US also their mission of attacking Afghanistan was fulfilled after so many years of battle.
It took US approx. 10 years to get hold of the main culprit of 9/11. USSR forces too stayed for 10 years. But the unfavorable condition make they stay quite hectic and difficult. Now as US managed to accomplish their main purpose of attacking Afghanistan, will they leave the country? What will happen to the puppet government, they set up? Is Osama killing the end of bloodshed in Afghanistan?
There are more questions, then answer. The country has taken a heavy toll so far at multiple hands. It will be interesting to see how they progress further post the US invasion. Links to the earlier part of this series are:
Enjoy reading
THIS IS 'AI FREE ' ORIGINAL CONTENT WITH REFERENCE AND INPUTS FORM DIFFERENT NEWS PORTAL, NEWS PAPER ARTICLEs AND WIKIPIDIA. some of the links are in image sourced
