October 7 marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the military operation by the United States and its allies in Afghanistan, launched less than a month after the September 11, 2001 attacks with the stated aim of \u201csuppressing al-Qaeda and dismantling the Taliban government.\u201d It went on to become a war that lasted nearly two decades.<\/p>\n
According to this report, the operation began on the evening of October 7, 2001, with heavy bombing, as U.S. B-2 and B-52 bombers struck Taliban targets and al-Qaeda training centres. The operation was known as \u201cEnduring Freedom,\u201d with Britain directly involved and some Western allies providing intelligence and logistical support.<\/p>\n
The report adds that the initial attacks seriously weakened the Taliban\u2019s military capabilities and paved the way for the rapid advance of the \u201cNorthern Alliance,\u201d which until then had only a limited presence and resistance in parts of northern Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
On casualties, international estimates show that in the early years of the war, thousands of civilians were killed as a result of air strikes, ground fighting and direct wartime violence. Based on various reports and data published on Operation Enduring Freedom, the number of civilian victims over different periods is cited as ranging from 3,100 to more than 46,000; according to those same sources, this figure does not include indirect deaths caused by consequences such as lack of medical services, poverty and displacement.<\/p>\n
In addition to the human toll, the war also left broad social and economic consequences, including the displacement of millions of people over two decades, damage to critical infrastructure and chronic economic stagnation. The report also refers to Afghanistan\u2019s deep dependence on foreign aid and the continued presence of foreign forces until 2021, a presence that ended with the hasty U.S. withdrawal.<\/p>\n
According to Irav, Operation Enduring Freedom officially ended in 2014, but the U.S. mission continued for years under Operation Freedom\u2019s Sentinel and in cooperation with NATO. During this period, the focus shifted from direct military operations to training and supporting Afghan security forces, a path that, the report says, failed to prevent the collapse of Afghanistan\u2019s political structure in 2021.<\/p>\n
For many people in Afghanistan, October 7 is a reminder of the start of an exhausting war that affected the lives, security and future of several generations, and whose consequences are still visible in Afghanistan and the wider region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
October 7 marks 25 years since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan began, a war that caused heavy civilian and social losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}