The War On Terror's First Front: Afghanistan And The Prelude To Iraq

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, and ended in 2021. The war in Iraq began in 2003 and ended in 2011. Therefore, the war in Afghanistan came first.

The war in Afghanistan was triggered by the September 11 attacks and consisted of three phases. The first phase was to topple the Taliban, the second was to defeat the Taliban militarily and rebuild core institutions of the Afghan state, and the third was to implement a strategy of protecting the population from Taliban attacks and reintegrating insurgents into Afghan society. The war in Iraq, on the other hand, was launched by U.S. forces, who invaded the country to destroy Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and end the rule of Saddam Hussein.

The Afghanistan War was triggered by the September 11 attacks

In the aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration coalesced around a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al-Qaeda. The US demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda operatives, but the Taliban refused.

On October 7, 2001, the US and UK launched Operation Enduring Freedom, marking the public start of the war in Afghanistan. The invasion was supported by a large multinational force, including Afghanistan's local Northern Alliance. The campaign in Afghanistan started covertly on September 26, with a CIA team known as Jawbreaker arriving in the country to initiate a strategy for overthrowing the Taliban regime.

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban regime and established an interim government led by Hamid Karzai. However, the US was unable to capture Osama bin Laden, who escaped to Pakistan. The US-led coalition remained in Afghanistan, forming a security mission to prevent the Taliban from returning to power.

The conflict officially ended in 2021 with the Taliban offensive, which overthrew the Islamic Republic and re-established the Islamic Emirate. The war was the longest in US military history, surpassing the Vietnam War.

The US-British invasion of Afghanistan began in late 2001

The US-British invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 was a response to the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The conflict, known as Operation Enduring Freedom, was intended to target terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation, which was based in the country, as well as the extreme fundamentalist Taliban government that had ruled most of the country since 1996 and supported and protected al-Qaeda.

In the weeks prior to the invasion, both the United States and the UN Security Council demanded that the Taliban turn over Osama bin Laden for prosecution. After deeming the Taliban's counteroffers unsatisfactory, the invasion began with an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaeda installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz, and Mazar-e-Sharif. The coalition planes also flew in airdrops of humanitarian supplies for Afghan civilians.

The Taliban called the actions "an attack on Islam". After the air campaign softened Taliban defences, the coalition began a ground invasion, with Northern Alliance forces providing most of the troops and the US and other nations giving air and ground support. On November 12, a little over a month after the military action began, Taliban officials and their forces retreated from the capital of Kabul. By early December, Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, had fallen and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar went into hiding rather than surrender.

Al-Qaeda fighters continued to hide out in Afghanistan's mountainous Tora Bora region, where they were engaged by anti-Taliban Afghan forces, backed by US Special Forces troops. Al-Qaeda soon initiated a truce, which is now believed to have been a ploy to allow Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda members time to escape into neighbouring Pakistan. By mid-December, the bunker and cave complex used by al-Qaeda at Tora Bora had been captured, but there was no sign of bin Laden.

The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the US "war on terror" and it would span two decades, becoming the longest war in US history.

The US troop surge and the end of the US combat mission in Afghanistan

The US troop surge in Afghanistan was part of President Barack Obama's new strategy for the war effort, which he announced in 2009. Obama's plan was to link success in Afghanistan to a stable Pakistan. The core goal of the strategy was to "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan".

Obama's new strategy involved deploying an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, on top of the 36,000 US troops and 32,000 NATO service members already there. This was in addition to the 17,000 troops Obama had already sent to Afghanistan during his first term. The new troops would focus on countering a "resurgent" Taliban and stemming the flow of foreign fighters over the Afghan-Pakistan border in the south.

The surge in US forces was accompanied by a dramatic escalation of US drone strikes in Pakistan. However, the strategy also involved trying to persuade enemy fighters to defect and ultimately encouraging reconciliation between the Karzai government and Taliban leaders.

In a speech at the US Military Academy at West Point in December 2009, Obama announced a major escalation in the war effort, with 30,000 additional troops being deployed to Afghanistan by the summer of 2010. This brought the total number of US troops in Afghanistan to around 100,000.

The surge in troops led to an increase in US combat deaths. Notably, during the first three months of 2010, US deaths were approximately twice what they had been over the same period in 2009.

In 2011, Obama announced plans to withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of the year and the remaining 20,000 of the "surge" troops by the summer of 2012. He said that the US combat mission in Afghanistan was ending and that the longest war in American history was coming to a "responsible conclusion". However, the war was far from over, and US troops continued to fight and die in Afghanistan for many years.

The US and NATO formally ended their combat mission in Afghanistan on 28 December 2014, but a reduced force of around 13,000 troops remained to support and train Afghan troops. A full withdrawal of US troops was initiated in 2020 and continued into 2021.

The Iraq War began in 2003 with an invasion to destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction

The Iraq War began on March 20, 2003, with an invasion to destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The war was launched by a coalition of forces from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, with the United States providing the majority of the troops. The invasion was justified by the coalition's belief that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction, and that the country was providing support to terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda. The war was also framed as a response to the September 11 attacks of 2001, which had been orchestrated by al-Qaeda.

The invasion was preceded by a series of airstrikes on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad on March 20, 2003. The following day, coalition forces launched an incursion into Basra Governorate, and special forces launched an amphibious assault to secure the petroleum fields. The main invasion army moved into southern Iraq, occupying the region and engaging in the Battle of Nasiriyah on March 23. Massive air strikes across the country threw the defending army into chaos and prevented an effective resistance. On March 26, the 173rd Airborne Brigade was airdropped near the northern city of Kirkuk, where they joined forces with Kurdish rebels and fought several actions against the Iraqi Army.

The main body of coalition forces continued their drive into the heart of Iraq and were met with little resistance. Most of the Iraqi military was quickly defeated, and the coalition occupied Baghdad on April 9. Other operations occurred against pockets of the Iraqi Army, including the capture and occupation of Kirkuk on April 10, and the attack on and capture of Tikrit on April 15. Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the central leadership went into hiding as the coalition forces completed the occupation of the country. On May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat operations.

The Iraq War ended in 2011

The war was initially supported by the American public, with 76% of Americans approving of military action against Iraq in a March 2003 Gallup poll. However, public support for the war waned as it dragged on, with the US failing to find the weapons of mass destruction that had been used to justify the invasion. The war also caused a rift between the US and its allies, with countries such as France and Germany opposed to the invasion.

The US formally declared an end to the war in a ceremony in Baghdad on December 15, 2011, with President Barack Obama announcing that the remaining 39,000 US troops would return from Iraq by the end of the year. The war cost the US 800 billion dollars and resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,500 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis.

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