WHY IN THE NEWS?

The United States announced the end of its 20-year-old war in Afghanistan before the deadline of August 31, 2021

About:

• This announcement was made after the last American military flight flew out of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul before the August 31 deadline.
• America announced the formal end of America’s longest war, just before the 20th anniversary of September 9/11, in which Al Qaeda terrorists hit the twin towers in New York.
• The 9/11 terrorist strike had forced the US to enter Afghanistan and overthrow the Taliban rule who had provided safe havens to the Al Qaeda leadership.
• The Taliban rule was overthrown and replaced by US-backed Afghans. They then ruled the country for 20 years. In last 20 years several during general elections were held.
• US-backed Afghan rule was overthrown by the Taliban again on August 15 when president Ashraf Ghani fled the country and 3,00,000 Afghan armed forces troops, who were trained by the United States, gave up without any fight.
• The Taliban is now ruling Afghanistan and it welcomed the departure of the US troops from the country.

War in Afghanistan

It was a conflict, took place from 2001 to 2021, in Afghanistan. The war started with the invasion that led to the United States and its allies to topple the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan so that they could deny al-Qaeda a safe base of operations in Afghanistan. War was officially fought by allied NATO & Afghan Armed Forces against Taliban insurgents. The Taliban defeated the Afghanistan Army after majority of NATO forces left the country. This was the longest war in the history of United States.