On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda hijacked four airliners and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks resulted in extensive death and destruction, triggering major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism and defining the presidency of George W. Bush. Over 3,000 people were killed during the attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., including more than 400 police officers and firefighters.
Numerous incidents of harassment and hate crimes against Muslims and South Asians were reported in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Sikhs were also targeted because Sikh males usually wear turbans, which are stereotypically associated with Muslims. There were reports of attacks on mosques and other religious buildings and assaults on people.
Suspicion quickly fell on al-Qaeda. The United States responded to the attacks by launching the War on Terror and invading Afghanistan on 7 October 2001 to depose the Taliban. The U.S. and its allies drove the Taliban from power and built military bases near major cities across the country.
At the Bonn Conference in December 2001, Hamid Karzai was selected to head the Afghan Interim Administration, which after a 2002 Loya Jirga in Kabul became the Afghan Transitional Administration. In the popular elections of 2004, Karzai was elected president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
The invasion of Afghanistan was intended to target terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden‘s al-Qaeda organization, 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. The Taliban, which had imposed its extremist version of Islam on the entire country, also perpetrated countless human rights abuses against its people, especially women, girls and ethnic Hazaras. During their rule, large numbers of Afghans lived in utter poverty, and as many as 4 million Afghans are thought to have suffered from starvation.
The US military forces toppled the Taliban government and disrupted bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed by United States Armed Forces in Pakistan. The Taliban leadership survives in hiding throughout Afghanistan, largely in the southeast, and continues to launch guerrilla attacks against forces of the United States, its allies, and the current government of President Hamid Karzai.
Even as Afghanistan began to take the first steps toward democracy, however, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops in country, al-Qaeda and Taliban forces began to regroup in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They continue to engage U.S. and Afghan troops in guerilla-style warfare and have also been responsible for the deaths of elected government officials and aid workers and the kidnapping of foreigners. Hundreds of American and coalition soldiers and thousands of Afghans have been killed and wounded in the fighting.
Afghans continue to make up the largest refugee population in the world, though around 3 million have returned to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, further straining the country’s war-ravaged economy.
Finally the security was handed from NATO to Afghan forces. On June 18, 2013 the handover of security was completed. The International Security Assistance Force formally handed over control of the last 95 districts to Afghan forces. Following the handover, Afghan forces will have the lead for security in all 403 districts of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Before the handover they were responsible for 312 districts nationwide, where 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population of nearly 30 million lives.
Plans by the US to engage in peace talks with the Taliban have resulted in suspension of bilateral security discussions between the US and Afghanistan on June 19, 2013. In a special meeting chaired by President Hamid Karzai, the president has decided to suspend talks about a security pact with the U.S. because of their inconsistent statements and actions in regard to the peace process. Negotiations on the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) began earlier 2013 and, if completed, will define the shape of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan for years to come. The security discussions between the U.S. and Afghanistan would provide for a limited number of military trainers and counterterrorism forces to remain in the country. The talks have been complicated by several disagreements, including over the immunity that U.S. troops would enjoy from Afghan laws. The text of the BSA was approved by the delegates at the Loya Jirga on November 24, 2013 to be signed by the Afghan President however yet denied by President Karzai.
During a surprise trip to Afghanistan in May 2014 the US President Barack Obama stated that the United States wanted to sign a bilateral security agreement with Afghanistan for the purpose of continuing training/advising Afghan forces and assisting in specific counterterrorism missions. The winner of Afghanistan’s third election — between former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and onetime World Bank economist Ashraf Ghani — will be asked immediately to sign the security agreement that will help determine how many U.S. forces, as of May 2014 numbering 32,000, will remain in Afghanistan after the end of the year 2014. U.S. officials said the security agreement must be endorsed as soon as possible to give U.S. military planners time to complete drawdown schedules — including decisions on what bases to close — and make arrangements for the next phase of the U.S. military presence after nearly 13 years of war.