Clockwise from top-left: American troops in a firefight with Taliban insurgents in Kunar Province; An American F-15E Strike Eagle dropping 2000 pound JDAMs on a cave in eastern Afghanistan; an Afghan soldier surveying atop a Humvee; Afghan and American soldiers move through snow in Logar Province; victorious Taliban fighters after securing Kabul; an Afghan soldier surveying a valley in Parwan Province; British troops preparing to board a Chinook during Operation Black Prince
Date
7 October 2001 – 30 August 2021 (19years, 10months, 3weeks and 2days)
October 7: (9 p.m. local time): the United States, supported by Britain, begins its attack on Afghanistan, launching bombs and cruise missiles against Taliban military and communications facilities and suspected terrorist training camps. Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat were hit.
October 9: A cruise missile kills four U.N. demining employees and injures four others in a building several miles east of Kabul.
October 19: Airborne invasion into Afghanistan by Rangers of the Third Ranger Battalion, Seventy Fifth Ranger Regiment and others seizing a Qandahar airfield named Objective Rhino.
October 26: Afghan mujahedeen commander Abdul Haq killed by the Taliban.[74][75]
November 6: Zari, Keshendeh and Aq-Kupruk fall to the Northern Alliance[76]
November 10: The Taliban and Northern Alliance fighters both claimed that the strategic northern Afghan city of Mazari Sharif was taken by Northern Alliance fighters.
November 25: Northern Alliance gained control of Kunduz, the last Taliban stronghold in Northern Afghanistan, but only after Pakistani aircraft rescue several thousand Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters and their military advisers.[77][78] The Taliban then controlled less than 25% of the country, mainly around Kandahar in the south.
U.S. Marines landed in force by helicopter at Camp Rhino south of Kandahar and began preparing it for fixed wing aircraft. They also occupied the main road between Kandahar and Pakistan.
Battle of Qala-i-Jangi. Forces loyal to bin Laden smuggled weapons into their prison near Mazar i Sharif after surrendering at Kunduz. They attacked the Northern Alliance guards and storm an armory. U.S. Special Forces call in air attacks. Hundreds of prisoners are killed as well as 40 Alliance fighters and one U.S. CIA operative, Johnny Michael Spann. Spann becomes the first U.S. and Coalition combat casualty. A young American named John Walker Lindh is found in the midst of the rebellion and extradited to the US on terrorism charges.
June 11: King Zahir Shah opens the first post-Taliban loya jirga.[79]
July 1: In Uruzgan province, a US AC-130 gunship struck a wedding party, killing 48 civilians and injuring 117. The United States claimed their plane had come under attack from anti-aircraft fire before the strike.
July 6: Vice President Abdul Qadir assassinated in Kabul.
August 16: Nangar Khel massacre - Eight civilians including a pregnant women and a baby died when Polish soldiers shelled the village of Nangar Khel. Seven soldiers have been charged with war crimes.
May 4: The Granai airstrike resulted in one of the highest civilian death tolls from Western military action since foreign forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
September 4: NATO planes attacks two fuel tankers, which had been hijacked by Taliban insurgents. Up to 142 people died in the attack, including over 100 Afghan civilian victims.[80]
February 12: Five innocent civilians including two pregnant women and a teenage girl killed in the botched Khataba raid.
February 21: Uruzgan helicopter attack kills 27-33 civilians including four women and a child in Uruzgan province.
Spring: Operation Moshtarak Phase I is led by US Marines to retake Marjah, in Helmand Province, from the Taliban.
Spring-Summer: U.S. Surge to Afghanistan sees its peak, as 20,000 soldiers are deployed to the south
June 23: General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the ISAF, resigns after controversial comments critical of the Obama administration were published in a magazine.
July 23: The Sangin airstrike kills a large number of Afghan civilians mostly women and children in Nangarhar province.
September 18: Afghan Parliamentary Elections are held, widely criticized as fraudulent, although with notable instances of electoral institution impartiality.
May 1: The number one Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan, just miles from Islamabad.
May 23: 4 U.S. soldiers (2nd Battalion 27th Infantry Regiment) die and 1 wounded following an improvised explosive device attack in Kunar province.
June 4–6: The Battle Of Gewi Ridge takes place where a platoon of U.S. soldiers air-assaulted the mountain ridge of Gewi (Kunar province) for over-watch of a major re-supply convoy. Following the insertion, an intensive firefight lasting 52 hours takes place, resulting in the deaths of 50+ Taliban insurgents.
August 6: A CH-47 Chinook helicopter transporting 30 U.S. soldiers (including 17 Navy SEALs), 1 civilian interpreter and 7 Afghan troops is shot down in Wardak Province by RPG-wielding Taliban insurgents. There were no survivors of the crash. This incident marks the deadliest day for U.S. Forces in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001.
August 11: Vengeance is exacted on the 11 Taliban militants involved in downing the CH-47 Chinook, who are killed in an F-16 airstrike. Meanwhile, five ISAF service members die following an improvised explosive device attack in the southern provinces.
September 20: Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former President and head of the High Peace Council, was assassinated by Taliban suicide bombers in Kabul.
November 26: 2011 NATO attack in Pakistan occurs in which 28 Pakistani soldiers are killed at the Durand Line, although it's disputed which side instigated the event.
December 9: Mohammed Ishmael, Ghaziabad district (Kunar province) police chief is killed in a suicide bombing of a mosque carried out by a 12-year-old Pakistani boy.
August 15: The Taliban capture Kabul. The Islamic Republic collapses as the Taliban begins reinstating the Islamic Emirate. An international airlift of refugees begins.
Bordering areas of Pakistan were also affected (War in North-West Pakistan), and was considered for some time to be a single theater of operations by the United States (AfPak)
Sennott, Charles M. (May 5, 2015). "The First Battle of the 21st Century". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on July 30, 2019. Retrieved May 15, 2015. Even after 14 years of war in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has not fully succeeded in restoring security to the country or defeating the Taliban. Now, at the request of the new Afghan government, the United States has delayed the completion of its troop withdrawal from the country until 2016 at the earliest.
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