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LAST UPDATE | 16 Aug 2021
(Note: This timeline was first published on 12 August but has now been updated to reflect the Taliban’s control of Kabul.)
20 YEARS AFTER an invasion by US-led forces in 2001, the Taliban has now taken effective control of Afghanistan once more.
Fighting in Afghanistan’s long-running conflict has escalated dramatically since May, when the US-led military coalition began the final stage of a withdrawal that was set to be completed before the end of this month.
This timeline has now been accelerated as the Taliban swiftly advanced across the south Asian nation following the withdrawal of US troops.
The return of the Taliban to likely means a return to its violent, ultra-austere brand of Islam which has banned music and severely restricted the rights of women and girls.
The US was continuing to provide air support and equipment to Afghan troops but President Joe Biden’s urging of Afghan leaders to “fight for themselves” has proved to be a fruitless plea.
“We spent over a trillion dollars over 20 years. We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces,” Biden said last Tuesday.
Afghan leaders have to come together. They’ve got to fight for themselves, fight for their nation.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland this week UUP leader Doug Beattie, who had three tours in Afghanistan as a member of the British army, rejected the notion that the Afghan people should be left alone in their fight.
“People think they have not been fighting for themselves. They have been fighting for themselves, for dozens of years, hundreds of years and we have been supporting them,” he said.
The people of Afghanistan who thought that we would help will be feeling scared now. And some of them, the women in particular, will be downtrodden once more, will not be able to work, will not be able to be educated, and we’ll go back to a regime that we overthrew in 2001. I don’t know how anybody can support the Taliban for them to be able to do that and that’s why I believe we have made a terrible decision to leave these people.
Biden has also drawn much criticism in the US for the messaging and policy on Afghanistan and he is due to address US citizens later tonight.
So how did we get to the point that the US invaded Afghanistan but now left with the original rulers set to return?
The timeline goes back to the attacks on 11 September, 2001 that will have their 20th anniversary next month.
9/11
The United States descended on Afghanistan and its Taliban government in 2001 in the wake of the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda, which had sought sanctuary in the country.
On 7 October, 2001 — less than a month after the 11 September attacks that killed around 3,000 people in the United States — President George W. Bush launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan.
The ruling Islamist Taliban had been sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda movement, which carried out the 9/11 attacks.
The operation opened a military front in the US “war on terrorism” and within weeks, US-led forces overthrew the Taliban, who had been in power since 1996.
About 1,300 American soldiers were on the ground by November 2001, rising to almost 10,000 the next year.
Forgotten war
American attention was diverted from Afghanistan when US forces invaded Iraq in March 2003 to oust dictator Saddam Hussein.
The fragmented Taliban and other Islamist outfits regrouped in their strongholds in southern and eastern Afghanistan, from where they could easily travel between their bases in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and launched an insurgency.
In 2008, the US command in Afghanistan called for more manpower. President Bush sent additional soldiers, bringing the total to 48,500 US troops deployed.
Peak of 100,000 US troops
In 2009, Barack Obama – elected president after a campaign that promised to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – boosted the US presence to around 68,000. In December, he sent another 30,000 troops.
The objective was to stymie the growing Taliban insurgency and strengthen Afghan institutions.
By 2010, about 150,000 foreign soldiers were deployed in Afghanistan, of which 100,000 were American.
Bin Laden killed
Osama bin Laden was killed on 2 May, 2011 in a US special forces operation in Pakistan.
Combat operations end
The NATO alliance ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014.
But around 12,500 foreign soldiers – of which 9,800 were American – remained to train Afghan troops and conduct anti-terrorist operations.
Security in Afghanistan deteriorated as the Taliban’s insurgency spread, with a branch of the Islamic State (IS) group also becoming active in South Asia in 2015.
US reinforcements
President Donald Trump scrapped any timetables for a US pull-out and re-commited thousands more soldiers in August 2017.
However, deadly attacks multiplied, especially against Afghan forces. The United States dramatically stepped up air strikes.
Talks and deal
The following year, Washington and Taliban representatives discreetly opened talks in Doha, led by US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, focused on slashing the American military footprint in Afghanistan.
In return, Washington demanded that the Taliban prevent the country from being used as a haven for jihadist groups including Al-Qaeda.
On 29 February, 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed a historic deal.
It paveed the way for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Afghanistan by May 2021 — in return for the insurgents offering some security guarantees and agreeing to hold peace talks with the Afghan government.
The peace talks begin on 12 September but violence surged in Afghanistan and negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan government stalled.
The Taliban were blamed for a wave of targeted killings against high-profile activists, politicians, journalists and working women.
End date and Taliban attack
Troop numbers by the end of Trump’s presidency in January 2021 fell to 2,500 as support for military action waned.
As of February, NATO has around 10,000 service members in the country, the largest contingent of which is from the United States.
President Joe Biden announced he would stick to the agreement with the Taliban, but delayed the drawdown deadline until 11 September.
Violence surged after the missed 1 May deadline and the Taliban launched a blistering offensive, capturing a number of rural districts close to major cities, stirring fears that Afghan security forces will buckle once US and international troops leave.
Fierce fighting
In early May, NATO began a final withdrawal of its mission in Afghanistan involving 9,600 soldiers – 2,500 of them American.
Intense fighting broke out between the Taliban and government forces in southern Helmand province and the insurgents captured Burka in northern Baghlan province.
A bomb blast outside a girls’ school on 8 May in Kabul killed 85 people, mostly pupils.
The deadliest attack in a year was blamed on the Taliban, though they did not claim it.
Mid-May, US forces withdrew from the air base in Kandahar, one of the largest in the country.
Bagram handed over to Afghan troops
Officials on 2 June announced the imminent departure of all US and NATO troops from Bagram, Afghanistan’s biggest air base, signalling that the complete withdrawal of foreign forces was imminent.
Bagram served as the linchpin for US-led operations in Afghanistan, and the ability of Afghan forces to hold the base is likely to prove pivotal to maintaining security in nearby Kabul and keeping up pressure on the militants.
Taliban advances
The insurgents seized districts in Wardak province, 40km from Kabul, and restive Ghazni, a key province straddling roads connecting Kabul to Kandahar, the second-largest city.
In mid-June, the Taliban captured several districts in the northern provinces of Faryab, Takhar and Badakhshan, forcing the military to retreat from a number of areas.
Key borders
The Taliban took control of the main Shir Khan Bandar border crossing with Tajikistan, prompting the Central Asian country to check the combat readiness of its armed forces on 22 June.
The insurgents seized other routes to Tajikistan, as well as the districts leading to Kunduz, capital of the northern province of the same name, about 50km from the Tajik border.
On 9 July, the Taliban announced the capture of Afghanistan’s biggest border crossing with Iran, Islam Qala.
Airport
Two days later Afghan authorities installed an anti-missile system at Kabul airport to counter incoming rockets.
On 14 July, the insurgents took control of the Spin Boldak border crossing with Pakistan, a key trade route between the two countries.
The Taliban claimed on 22 July that they controlled 90% of Afghanistan’s borders, a figure disputed by the government and impossible to verify.
Capitals fall
In a sharp escalation over the first weekend of August, the Taliban offensive focused on urban centres, with the insurgents attacking at least three provincial capitals – Lashkar Gah, Kandahar and Herat.
The US and Britain said the Taliban may have committed “war crimes”, accusing the insurgents of “massacring civilians” in the town of Spin Boldak.
Eight people were killed on 3 August in a coordinated Taliban-claimed bomb and gun attack targeting the Afghan defence minister and several lawmakers in Kabul.
On 6 August, the Taliban shot dead the head of the Afghan government’s media information centre at a mosque in the capital.
The Taliban captured their first Afghan provincial capital, the city of Zaranj in southwestern Nimroz, taking it “without a fight”.
In the following days, several other northern cities fell: Sheberghan, Kunduz, Sar-e-Pul, Taloqan, Aibak, Farah and Pul-e-Khumri.
Despite the bloodshed and sweeping advances, US President Joe Biden gave no suggestion he may delay the withdrawal deadline.
On Wednesday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani flew to the besieged northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif to rally his forces.
But his visit was overshadowed by the surrender of hundreds of Afghan soldiers in nearby Kunduz, the biggest city to fall to that point.
At the gates
As recently as 13 August, Pentagon says Kabul does not appear to face an “imminent threat” but two days later Taliban fighters appear on the edge of the city.
The insurgents fully encircle the capital on 15 August with the capture of Jalalabad in the east, leaving Kabul as the only city under government control.
On Sunday evening, former vice president Abdullah Abdullah announces that president Ghani has left the country.
“The Islamic Emirate instructs all its forces to stand at the gates of Kabul, not to try to enter the city,” a spokesman for the Taliban tweets as residents report insurgents on the outskirts of the city.
The Taliban then say that their militants have entered multiple districts of the capital.
Diplomatic missions scramble to evacuate officials and local staff who fear reprisals from the Taliban.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejects parallels between chaotic scenes unfolding in Kabul and the Vietnam war, declaring “this is manifestly not Saigon”.
Ghani flees the country, reportedly to Tajikistan, and the Taliban enter Kabul, eventually taking position in the presidential palace.
Television images show the Taliban have entered the capital and have seized the presidential palace.
In a message on Facebook, Ghani says he has fled to avoid a “flood of bloodshed” and says the “Taliban have won”.
Chaos at the airport
People besiege Kabul’s airport on 16 August, the only exit route from the country.
Videos show scenes of chaos as people try to board the few flights available.
US troops fire shots into the air and all commercial flights are cancelled as chaos breaks out on the tarmac.
At least seven people are killed with some falling to their deaths after attempting to cling to US military planes taking off from the airport.
About 6,000 US troops are in the area in an effort to ensure the airport is secure but military flights are paused due to the uncertain and dangerous situation,
With reporting by © – AFP 2021
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Kelly keeping his seat? Your having a laugh.
He really does have no chance of keeping his seat. Alex White will need to pray every single transfer goes his way in order to scrape the last seat,
Seán Sherlock will only get elected assuming an independent doesn’t garner enough support to beat him and he gets some good transfers. Bacik won’t get elected.
Jan O’Sullivan is on course to be unseated by Sinn Féin in Limerick
Brendan Howlin is likely to scrape through on transfers in Wexford and just take the last seat.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin will be fighting with an independent for the last seat in Dublin Bay North
For me if I think voting for Alan Kelly will get Michael Lowry out I’d vote Kelly even though I’ve never voted labour in my life.
Lowry and Kelly are birds of a feather and with a similar outlook. Each entirely lacks political integrity.
Ah know Anthony I’m not a fan of Kelly but Lowry is in a league of his own.
Sick of all these weasels.
*no*
Gerry Adams or Alan Kelly Jane?
I could never vote for Gerry Adams Super. I cannot get past what Sinn Fein did regarding Det McCabe.
Joan Burton or Mary Lou?
Same thing Super I could never vote Sinn Fein.
Ah Jane.. Poor decision making
No Super I completely disagree. There is no doubt this government have made mistake after mistake and it really galls me that Kenny doesn’t think he’s answerable to the electorate and won’t do interviews. However, supporting lads who were robbing a postoffice and then shot a Guard who’s job it was to protect that post office is just wrong. I cannot get past that.
Do the country a favour and don’t vote jane if it’s Kelly or Lowry as your only options. Better still register yourself as an independent and vote for yourself would be a vote more worth giving….
I didn’t realize AAA got 4% in the last poll… that’s actually not bad..
Don’t worry Giuseppe I won’t be voting for either. But I do think I’ll be using my vote in a negative way to get Lowry out as opposed to getting who I want in. If that makes sense.
Why dont labour just join fg or ff sure they are all the same unless someone can tell how they are different._.
Tipp people have a lot to answer for, they gave us Lowry and Kelly, they should be barred from voting, numbnuts
Kerry people have given us 2 generations of Healy Rays, Dubs have given us the likes of Bertie and Joan Burton and mayo have given us Enda and P Flynn. I could go on. Stupid comment……numbnuts
????…They actually think they’ll have something to lead?…..bahawhahwahahaw!
No thanks I’ll pass there all traitors.
Al Ca..well said. on another note Baz’s mum must have taken her phone back…school starts again tomorrow
White wont even be a TD
Jenni how do you even keep track of all these multiple accounts of yours?
I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you around here a good bit tomorrow jenni ;)
no one likes you baz maybe you should try a different site .. now f@#=k off
Calm down Alan it’s going to be ok.
Ah come on now Alan, that’s not entirely true. Who doesn’t like someone that makes a fool of themselves consistently? He’s like a court jester, a clown if you will, sent here for our amusement.
Thanks Les. You’re opinion almost matters to me.
Thankfully it’s not an opinion!
In Cork, Baz is slang for pubic hair, nuf said
even the name labour makes me sick, they are gone in the next GE, no need to worry about who will lead them, as there will be nothing left to lead,
f^ck you labour! hopefully the electorate won’t forget! traitors. maybe Denis o Brien will have jobs for ye!
Well she’s f’d after the election! hopefully in 10 years we’ll be saying “remember Labour…”
If Alan Kelly becomes leader it will see the end of the Labour Party for good. The man couldn’t care less about the working class. They need to wipe the slate and start from scratch. Firstly thing is remove Joan and Kelly. I’ll never vote for them again, and I have supported them since all my voting life.
If I were seriously looking to revive Connolly’s party I’d start by purging all their TD’s and probably alert the naming to signal a new Labour and start again.
there is no labour party in this country, and this crowd conning the people that they are will be wiped out in GE.
Yea, the one labour candidate that gets elected will have to be leader also.
I wonder who that’ll be? Lol
reality is most of them won’t even get elected
Hopefully Stephen… FF also, they sat on the sidelines when it came to the marriage referendum, water charge debacle (which they started) and lets not forget the Mahon tribunal. Anyone who votes FG knows what they are getting. SF and independents all the way.
I can only speak from my personal experience, however I was very active in promoting Yes in the Marriage Referendum in Wicklow, knocking on doors and was joined by many members of FF, as well as other parties and no party
http://multistory.itison.net/2011/04/stephen-kearon-and-that-e3250-bill-for-hosting-a-website/
Stephen Kearon – a Fianna Fail member – at the same time as calling for spending cuts, was outed for charging€3250 for a year’s hosting of ONE website. When it’s a government site (Dick Roche’s) you can get away with this – despite calls for “spending cuts”.
Stephen also blew his career apart with some deranged comments about hoping Bobby Sands died painfully.
Even FF had to turn their back on him.
his FF career.
More right wing than the PDs and less relevant than the PDs. A proud and principled party was betrayed by Rabbitte, Gilmore and Burton. It is now condemned to history.
Coco the clown.
It will probably be a councillor as they will have no TDS after the next election the dirty sellouts.
the article left out a far more likely candidate than most of those above – Arthur Spring. Dick Springs son. He’ll surface and win if he wants it. Fresh blood. With a historical connection to Labour. My money is on him.
White a sharp mind? The dope that wasted €27 million by giving us Eircodes so that Irish Water could have a billing database at the expense of a proper GPS enabled postcode for our emergency services? White is a dope do you hear that Eunan a corrupt dope and a traitor to boot!
Sgt. Pepper – The likelihood of Arthur Spring holding his seat is somewhere between slim and none !
Local Polls put him at between 6/7% presently.
He has been largely Anonymous at Local level and has almost zero presence in South Kerry , which would be hugely essential, due to the amalgamation of the two Constituencies into One , for the whole of Kerry.
With only Five Seats to be won , he is the complete outsider of about Eight, in contention for the Five Seats.
In any case , Labour will do well , to win Six or Seven Seats , Nationally !
I personally , can’t wait for them to be wasted !
Excellent analysis on Spring in Kerry, he’s dead in the water, will go out early in the count on around 5 to 6% of the vote.
Sinn Fein will annihilate Liebor and i-Phone Moanie Joanie.
TÁL
The first thing you’ve said which makes sense.
Joan will be lucky to hold her seat.
As will all of these.
It could be an army of one.
Obviously comrade :)
I certainly hope that Sunday Business poll is out before the election is over
WIth Samsung of course Shinner O Bot?
Thanks Comrades, I am glad I have please HQ
“Ensign, as you know a captain must go own with his ship, so congratulations…I’m promoting you to captain. Now help me put this golden parachute on……”
Whichever one still has their seat I suppose.
A politicians version of musical chairs, except there is no music, and no chairs and only one left!!
Same circus different clowns
“The self-styled ‘Action Man’ has made no secret of his desire for the top job in Labour, a party which he often notes is “in my DNA”
If I were a grassroots member of the Traitor party, the last part of that sentence would scare the bejaysus out of me. If Alan Kelly is the future of the Traitor party you might as well merge with FG now and save the rest of us the pretense.
Les, do you really think FG would take him, sure they’re just having a laugh getting him to do their dirty work. They wouldnt touch him with a bargepole, he’s just another bi*ch for them to use.
Jenni when you consider that Fine Gael spent the best part of the last 4 years blaming Fianna Fail for everything, now there is whispers of them going into coalition together, like the political prostitutes that they are, of course they would take him if they thought there was some gain to be made from it.
I really don’t think anybody from Fine Gael is holding a gun to Alan Kelly’s head, do you? When the Traitor party perceived things were going well they told us “they were equal partners in coalition” and when things were going badly “we’re only the junior coalition party.” Kelly is more Fine Gael than many in Fine Gael.
And for the most part I agree with you. At this stage most of the main stream politicians are liars and thieves. Fg reared their own, Kelly is a labour turncoat, we all see that. FG wouldnt have him, similarly, they would take anyone else from labour. They put labour into some of the most difficult ministeries, made them do a horrible job and now they are leaving them to rot. and thats exactly why I will vote for neither. One are a bunch of cowardly turncoats, and the other are a bunch of bullies. And I dont like bullies..especially ones that affect my kids.
*wouldnt take anyone else*
Whether you’re right or I am, at least we can both agree that Alan Kelly’s immediate future will be a bleak one, which is nice ;-)
Agreed.
The image of burtons face would turn your stomach, that’s if they have left you enough money in your pocket to feed yourself
Labours next leader? I give you….Vidkun Quisling
Ged Nash “well liked”, by whom?
LMFM radio?
Loud Mouth For Meath…
By himself.
Interesting to see if Howlin retains his seat.
Enda’s little Rottweiler? Hope not!
Which leader will announce the end of the Labour Party?
GED better not get in for Louth. does nothing for the area. a glorified over paid assistant job minister
Ged Nash not a living chance, probably Kelly as Howlin has history which google doesn’t show in their search engine…
-1 voter here + i have 3 voting children who’ll be voting elsewhere. You’ve lost the core supporters liebour, dam you for fooling me so long, #neveragainliebour
I hear Judas Iscariot has his eye on the post…
Assuming they have enough members left to make a quorum, he should be a shoe in!
They won’t need a leader nothing left to lead
whichever one of the horrible self serving toads gets it; drink deeply from the poisoned chalice.
She’s aged like milk…
What a joke of a list, bedsides the LAB will be obliterated in the next GE and it really does not matter who their next leader will be.
The core of the next government will be FG and Labour. Now red thumb that all you guys in SF/IRA headquarters.
So everyone that disagrees with you MUST be in Sinn Fein? You really are a child, you need to grow up mate or at least pretend you’re a grown up.
I can even see the excuses after the ge “oh we did,nt realise people felt this way” and “we will learn from our mistakes”.
It happened the last time with the greens and ff. We have got to stop voting the same parasites in every time or nothing will change.
I’m NOT a SF voter.
Actually I started up my own political group (UNITEDPEOPLE) now registering as a party.
Don’t let fact come in the way of your fiction though!
Comment directed at Powerabbey. No one else.
But Enda’s doing such a great job… ;)
Be careful, some mightn’t know sarcasm…
That will not be nessessary as they are heading for a wipe out :-)
Who in there right state of mind would cast a vote labours direction you’d want your head examined if you did
Given that only a handful of Labour TDs (4 or 5) will be returned after the next general election, there wont be many to lead. What Labour needs is leadership out of the right wing austerity anti worker, anti joe soap, cutback let policies that they have supported and adopted. They are no different from FF or FG or Renua. They are the most right wing Labour Party in western Europe and I can honestly say they make me want to vomit.
Who’s Labour?
I voted Labour last time….and that will be the last time.
have a look at paddy power and see the odds. the bookies in england where accurate in election when most people.were suprised
Its like arguing who wants to be the new captain of the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg?
As a fellow Drogheda voter like Ged Nash, his seat is CERTAINLY up for grabs and is NOT safe.
…
Will be after the next election?
Shortall.
Yep, Sherlock will lead the “new” Labour Party when they emerge from the next GE.
Our local lad (Derek Nolan) hasn’t a prayer.
Sorry, Shortall!
Whats the collective noun for a bunch of tools?
A toolbox.
Let’s be honest, who cares ? seriously …
They don’t have to worry about a future leader, just somebody to put the cat out when Labour’s party is finally over and their political door is slammed shut
How can you have a leader if not 1 is elected?
In my mind there is no real choice of leader that is in anyway inspirational….there f#### anyway
Where they are going they will not need a leader .
They will. They’ll need someone to guide them through the political wilderness so they can find out where the PDs ended up.
who cares labour will be wiped out in next election….
Who cares they will be gone next election.
I would have thought that Arthur Spring would be on that list.
have your say