Audio tour Middle East

The Gulf War was an armed campaign waged by a United States led coalition of 35 nations against Iraq in response to the Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait. It was codenamed Operation Desert Shield and lasted from 2 August 1990 through 17 January 1991. during the pre-combat buildup of troops and the defense of Saudi Arabia. The combat phase named Operation Desert Storm lasted 17 January 1991 to 28 February 1991. 

On September 11, 2001, two commercial airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, another at the Pentagon near Washington, D.C., and one in Pennsylvania. The attacks were orchestrated by terrorists working from Afghanistan, which was under the control of the Taliban, an extremist Islamic movement. On October 7, 2001, U.S. and British forces launched Operation Enduring Freedom. Leading the plot was Osama bin Laden, leader of the Islamic militant group al Qaeda. It was believed the Taliban, which seized power in the country in 1996 following an occupation by the Soviet Union, was harboring bin Laden. The conflict lasted two decades and spanned four U.S. presidencies, becoming the longest war in American history.

While approximately 8,000 American troops remained in Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force overseen by NATO, the U.S. military focus turned to Iraq in 2003 when the United States UK, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq resulting in the overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. The occupation of Iraq lasted until 2011.

On April 17, 2002, President Bush called for a Marshall Plan to aid in Afghanistan’s reconstruction. 

Afghanistan held its first democratic elections since the onset of the war on October 9, 2004, with Karzai, winning the vote for president. Focus shifted to peacekeeping and reconstruction, but with the United States fighting a war in Iraq, the Taliban regrouped, and attacks escalated.

Newly elected President Barack Obama pledged to send an extra 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan by summer to join 36,000 American and 32,000 NATO forces already deployed there. 

In November 2010, NATO countries agreed to a transition of power to local Afghan security forces by the end of 2014, and, on May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs located and killed bin Laden in Pakistan. Following bin Laden's death, a decade into the war and facing calls from both lawmakers and the public to end the war, Obama released a plan to withdraw 33,000 U.S. troops by summer 2012, and all troops by 2014. NATO transitioned control to Afghan forces in June 2013. and Obama announced a new timeline for troop withdrawal in 2014, which included 9,800 U.S. soldiers remaining in Afghanistan to continue training local forces.

In 2015, the Taliban continued to increase its attacks, bombing the parliament building and airport in Kabul and carrying out multiple suicide bombings.

Under President Donald Trump the United States entered peace talks in February 2019. A deal was reached that included the U.S. and NATO allies pledging a total withdrawal within 14 months if the Taliban vowed to not harbor terrorist groups. But by September, Trump called off the talks after a Taliban attack that left a U.S. soldier and 11 others dead. 

Still, the United States and Taliban signed a peace agreement on February 29, 2020, although Taliban attacks against Afghan forces continued. In September 2020, members of the Afghan government met with the Taliban to resume peace talks and in November Trump announced that the plan to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 2,500 by January 15, 2021.

In April 2021 President Joe Biden, set the symbolic deadline of September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as the date of full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Facing little resistance, from August 6-15, 2021, the Taliban swiftly overtook provincial capitals, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and, finally, Kabul. As the Afghan government collapsed, President Ashraf Ghani fled to the country. Thousands of citizens rushed to the airport in Kabul to leave the country.

By August 14, Biden deployed about 6,000 U.S. troops to assist in evacuation efforts. Facing scrutiny for the Taliban's swift return to power, Biden stated, “I was the fourth president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war on to a fifth.”

By August 2021, the war began to come to a close with the Taliban regaining power. Overall, the conflict resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and a 2 trillion dollar price tag.