The War in Afghanistan Explained

Mr. Beat tells the story of the longest war in American history, the War in Afghanistan. This video contains historical accounts of war. If you need support, visit https://findahelpline.com/.

Can't get enough of this video? Here are some related videos:
 9/11 Explained 
The Iraq War Explained
The George W. Bush Song
The Barack Obama Song
The Donald Trump Song
The Joe Biden Song
The Real Reason Why the United States Is Constantly at War 
The Fall of Kabul and The Fall of Saigon Compared
Who was more anti-war? Biden or Trump?

And as promised, here is the script from my video:

19 years, 10 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days
I’m Mr. Beat, and that’s not how old I am (I’m a bit older than that)
That’s how long the longest war in American history lasted

A war that spanned four presidencies. A full generation of Afghans.  As a matter of fact, for many of you watching right now, this war lasted most of YOUR life. A war that resulted in the deaths of more than 200,000 people. That displaced millions. That cost more than 2.3 TRILLION dollars.^1 That’s TRILLION with a “T.” A war in which a comparably small and weak group of fundamentalist militants wreaked havoc on the LARGEST MILITARY IN THE WORLD. 

And after all that, the group the United States sent in to kick out….ended up right back in charge. Dang.

I personally know multiple people who fought in this one. Friends AND family. And so, unlike in previous videos I’ve made about American wars, in THIS video you’ll hear from veterans. Those who actually fought in it. (clips) Oh, I guess you just did.

Here’s the story of the War in Afghanistan.

First, let’s set the scene. Where the heck is Afghanistan? (turning) Oh, there it is.

-“The Graveyard of Empires”-
Afghanistan sits right in the middle of Central and South Asia….bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, and a whole bunch of countries to the north. Many people forget it’s also got a tiny sliver of a border with China. Amusing fact. Because China has one time zone across the entire country, crossing this border is a 3 and a half hour jump. Anyway, Afghanistan is almost entirely mountainous and thus hard to get around in and thus hard to control.
Search up “The Graveyard of Empires” and Afghanistan pops up.
The country earned that nickname because multiple countries over the years have tried to conquer the area but failed each and every time. Alexander the Great, The Mongols, The Persians, The British. They failed every time. So that should have been a warning sign, but unfortunately not enough people in the world freaking STUDY HISTORY. 

-More than 9/11-
Most people think the War in Afghanistan starts with 9/11, but you have to go back further than that man. Come on, let’s go further back in time. (running) Ah, here we are. Shakedown 1979. Cool kids never have the time

That year, after fundamentalist Muslims in Afghanistan rebelled against the pro-communist government, the Soviet Union, which was a massive communist superpower at the time…in case you’re rusty on your Cold War history…decided to intervene. The Soviets rolled in with tanks and troops to prop up the communist government in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. This kicked off what became known as the Soviet-Afghan War, which would last the next ten years.
The other superpower in the world at the time, the United States, perhaps obviously wanted to see the Soviet Union lose this war. It started funneling money and weapons to the Afghan resistance, known as the mujahideen. 

Clone: Wait, didn’t the United States basically help create the people they’d later fight?
Mr. Beat: Well, it’s complicated

While the United States supported the mujahideen, after the Soviets left in 1989, the American government kind of just…ignored Afghanistan. After the Afghan Civil War, a new fundamentalist group emerged called the Taliban. By 1996, they had taken over most of the country and had implemented a very strict version of Sharia law. 

Clone: Who is Sharia Law?
Mr. Beat: Dude, you sound like an idiot. Sharia Law is not a person.

Sharia law is an Islamic legal system, based on both the Qur'an and hadith and interpreted and modified by Islamic judges. Anyway, meanwhile a rich dude from Saudi Arabia named Osama bin Laden and his organization, al-Qaeda, had set up shop in Afghanistan. Why? Well, because the Taliban gave them a safe space to hang out and train.

Flash forward to September 11, 2001. al-Qaeda, led by the aforementioned Osama bin Laden, carries out the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in history. I was alive during this time. Yeah I’m old. I’m currently at the exact spot I lived during this time. The building’s not there anymore.

And I made a whole video about 9/11, as it’s more commonly called, but the gist of it is that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four planes with the goal of crashing them into four prominent American buildings. They crashed two into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, ultimately killing nearly 3,000 people.

George W. Bush, who had just taken over as the American president around eight months prior, didn’t wait long to act. 
21:48-22:59 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az9h45H0E7I 
Bush issued an ultimatum to the Taliban- hand over Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, close the terrorist training camps there, and give the United States full access to verify all this. After the Taliban didn’t fully cooperate, Bush was like, “fine, we’re gonna go to war against you.” And uh, yeah, that’s how the war began.

-The Quick Win (Or So They Thought)-
Americans overwhelmingly supported an American military campaign in Afghanistan.^2 I know I did…I, like almost every American back then, was very angry at al-Qaeda for what they did on 9/11. 
Congress had already overwhelmingly passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF. How overwhelmingly? Every member of Congress voted for it except one, a U.S. Representative named Barbara Lee, who worried it gave the federal government a blank check to wage war without debate. She had a point. Although it originally was meant to authorize the president to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those who “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11th attacks, it has been kept on the books ever since to justify a seemingly endless war on terrorism. Anyway, the first time the president used the AUMF was Bush sending troops to Afghanistan.

This wasn’t a massive ground invasion like the Iraq War would be a year and a half later. It was mostly American Special Forces and the CIA working with an Afghan coalition of anti-Taliban militias known as the Northern Alliance. Operation Enduring Freedom A few other NATO countries helped out.
On October 7, 2001, less than a month after 9/11, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom. It began with air strikes targeting Taliban military positions and al-Qaeda training camps across Afghanistan. American and British bombers pounded targets from thousands of feet in the air. 

It was kinda wild. You had Green Berets on horseback, working with Afghan fighters, calling in air strikes on their cell phones.^3 Very 21st century yet 10th century at the same time.

And it worked. At least in the beginning. The Taliban began to lose power fairly quickly. Mazar-i-Shariff, a major city in northern Afghanistan, fell to the Northern Alliance on November 9th. Kabul fell four days later. Kandahar, the Taliban’s spiritual home base in the south, fell on December 7th. Within two months of the war starting, the Taliban had mostly been driven from power. The remaining Taliban fighters scattered into the mountains or fled across the border into Pakistan. It seemed like a stunning, decisive victory. But bin Laden was still out there, man.

In December 2001, the CIA gathered enough intelligence to place bin Laden somewhere in the mountains near the Pakistan border…in a network of caves and tunnels that had actually been built with American CIA assistance back during the Soviet-Afghan War, which is kinda ironic.
Around that time, an international conference had met to establish a new government for Afghanistan, and since the country hadn’t had a unifying national government since 1979, the folks at this conference felt it was important to have some sort of transition period before a permanent new government got established. The result of this conference was the Bonn Agreement, which made THIS dude, Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s new president. Karzi, a Pashtun leader who spoke English and had strong ties to Western countries, was well-liked and he genuinely seemed to want to build a stable, democratic Afghanistan. Plus, he wore a cool hat. 

-And now a brief departure from the story-
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-I’m a Creep (What the he** am I doing here?)-
The United States and its allies poured money into Afghanistan. Billions and billions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_aLESDql1U of dollars for reconstruction. Building roads, schools, hospitals, and training a new Afghan army and police force. Indeederoo, this was the nation-building phase of the war, and it was pretty dang ambitious. Essentially, the goal was to transform one of the poorest, most underdeveloped countries on the planet into a stable, functioning democracy. Oh, and do it while simultaneously fighting off a lingering insurgency.  No pressure.
The United Nations Security Council established the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF (ISAF!), which eventually took over command of security operations across most of Afghanistan. At its peak, the ISAF would have 400 military bases throughout the country and troops from 42 different countries.^4

Some real progress was made in these early years. Life expectancy went up. Infant mortality declined. Girls, who had been banned from education under the Taliban, could now go to school. Afghans created a new constitution and began to hold elections. al-Qaeda was a shadow of itself.

But there were some serious, serious problems, ok?

First of all, the Taliban didn’t just, like, disappear. They grouped in the mountainous tribal areas of Afghanistan, and nearby Pakistan, where the Pakistani government had limited ability and will to go after them. Heck, even Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, was historically a bit too cozy with the Taliban. Indeed, the Taliban used Pakistani territory as a safe haven to recruit, train, and launch attacks back into Afghanistan.

Second, corruption. The Afghan government, from top to bottom, was riddled with corruption, for real. Money meant for reconstruction just disappeared. Warlords who had become allies with the United States sold illegal stuff. In fact, Afghanistan became the world’s leading producer of opium.

Third, and this is a big one…the Bush administration decided to all get the United States involved in another war. After the United States invaded Iraq to topple the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein on March 20, 2003, the administration shifted its focus and resources into what became known as the Iraq War. I have vid about it.  But yeah, after this the United States shifted attention and resources away from Afghanistan. And the Taliban noticed this.
By 2005, Taliban attacks had begun to dramatically increase. Roadside bombs…usually improvised explosive devices, or IEDs…became the signature weapon of the insurgency. Suicide bombings increased.^5 Taliban fighters who had quietly blended back into villages began organizing and fighting again.

In Helmand Province in the south of Afghanistan, things got particularly crazy. British forces deployed there in 2006 were stunned by the intensity of the fighting. Many of them had to fall into defense positions in some of the most intense combat of the war. In response to this, NATO launched major operations to clear Taliban strongholds across southern Afghanistan. In Operation Medusa, Canadian troops, believe it or not, led a brutal push to clear Taliban fighters out of the Kandahar Province. But once NATO troops left an area, Taliban fighters would come right back.

As it turns out, this would be a recurring theme in the War of Afghanistan. Coalition forces would clear an area of Taliban fighters, but without enough troops to hold the area permanently, the Taliban would just come back when the coalition forces moved on. A classic counterinsurgency dilemma.

By 2007, Taliban forces had at least 10,000 soldiers fighting. Over the next two years, that number would double.^6 In 2008, President Bush began authorizing raids into Pakistan, even though Pakistan didn’t like that so much. Bush also began withdrawing troops from Iraq while consistently increasing more troops to Afghanistan.

That same year, Barack Obama won the presidential election, in part by promising to end the Iraq War. And indeed, after he got into office he swiftly began to withdraw American forces from Iraq. But the new president remained committed to finding Osama bin Laden.

Clone: Wait, they still ain’t found bin Laden in nearly eight years?
Mr. Beat: Nope, they still ain’t found him.

Not only that, by that time the Taliban was as strong as ever. In 2009, Stanley McChrystal took over command of NATO operations in Afghanistan, launching Operation Strike of the Sword in Helmand Province, the biggest offensive airlift by the Marines since the Vietnam War. Meh, it didn’t go as well as McChrystal had hoped. He begged Defense Secretary Robert Gates for more troops…up to 40,000 more if possible. Otherwise, the war might be lost. After McChrystal’s pleas for more troops became public, even more Americans began to wonder what the heck the United States was still doing in Afghanistan.

Obama remained committed to the cause. He ordered a surge of 30,000 more troops to the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxz9TaQOLg Yeah, I just said that. That would now bring the total American force in the country to around 100,000. Obama’s goal was still to defeat al Qaeda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxz9TaQOLg. Yeah I just said that. Now, announcing a withdrawal date while simultaneously escalating…eh….was controversial, to say the least. Supporters argued it would motivate the Afghan government to step up. Critics….including some of Obama’s own generals…argued it told the Taliban that all they had to do was wait.

The surge years, 2010 and 2011, were actually the deadliest years of the war for American troops. More than 700 Americans died during those two years. The Korangal Valley, near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, became known as the “Valley of Death” since that’s where some of the most intense combat of the entire war went down.^7

In May 2011, everything changed.

CIA intelligence had tracked Osama bin Laden to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Not hiding in some cave in the mountains, but living in a relatively comfortable house in mid-sized city in Pakistan, not far from Pakistan’s main military academy. President Obama authorized a raid by NAVY SEAL Team 6. In the early morning hours of May 2, 2011, in Operation Neptune Spear, the SEALS broke into the compound and shot and killed bin Laden.^8 
There’s a now iconic picture of Obama and his advisors watching it take place. 

12 years later, a YouTuber went to the exact site where this all went down and found a cow grazing and kids playing cricket. Oh, and a lot of trash.
https://youtu.be/Y4m6JGeyjjY?si=we4nndCpq-QWJOJ4&t=135 
American forces would later bury his body at sea. 

After Obama announced the news, crowds immediately gathered outside the White House, chanting “USA! USA!” Indeed, most Americans were thrilled. The man who had ordered the 9/11 attacks was dead. The primary justification for the entire war had been accomplished. 

But the war didn’t end. Because by this point, it wasn’t really about bin Laden anymore.

-Years of War, Miles of Nothing-

As Obama had promised, American troop levels in Afghanistan had decreased in 2012. NATO combat operations officially ended at the end of 2014, replaced by a smaller “Resolution Support” mission focused on training and advising Afghan forces rather than LEADING combat operations.

Except the war wasn’t over. Not even close, Francis. Taliban attacks continued. Afghan security forces, now technically leading the fight, took catastrophic casualties- thousands of soldiers and police killed every single year. The Taliban made steady territorial gains. Districts that had been cleared multiple times fell again. The United States was afraid that, if they left, the Afghan government would immediately collapse. 

A new group also entered the picture- ISIS-K, the Afghan affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Remember ISIS? The group that gained a lot of power in Iraq and Syria around 2013 and 2014? Well, they spread to Afghanistan, too. ISIS-K, in some ways, was even more extreme than the Taliban, and the two groups actually fought EACH OTHER at times. So now you’ve got a three-way war going on at points. Great.

Instead of sending troops back, though, Obama used drones to bomb the crap out of the country. In what proved to be one of his most controversial policies, he dramatically increased aerial attacks from unmanned remotely piloted aircraft, aka drones. Critics of drone warfare said that, way more often than not, these bombs were being dropped on civilians, not militant insurgents. Even if they were known terrorists, critics argued, their constitutionally guaranteed right to trial by jury protected them from just being straight up executed. 

By 2016, most Americans had completely turned against the War in Afghanistan. That year, Donald Trump got elected president, in part, for his promise of ending “forever wars.” Obama left office in January 2017 having reduced American forces in Afghanistan all the way down to 8,400. The war he had called “necessary” still had no clear end in sight.

As Trump entered office, many Americans were optimistic that he’d end the war. After all, for years he had been critical of nation-building and long overseas military commitments. However, his military advisors persuaded him to actually INCREASE American troop levels in Afghanistan, at least slightly. Trump also loosened the rules of engagement, which led to a big increase in drone warfare. And unlike Obama, Trump stopped making it public every time the United States accidentally bombed civilians with drones. As civilian casualties climbed, more and more Afghans turned against American occupation.^9

But Trump’s instinct to get out of Afghanistan never really went away. In 2018, his administration did something that the United States had avoided doing for 17 years…they started TALKING to the Taliban. Direct negotiations. The talks were led by a diplomat named Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American who had been involved in Afghanistan policy for decades. Months turned into years of negotiations. Finally, on February 29, 2020, the United States and the Taliban signed the Doha Accord. ‘Twas a big deal. The Taliban agreed to not allow Afghan territory to be used as a base for attacks against the United States and its allies, to prevent al-Qaeda from operating in Taliban-controlled areas, and to negotiate with the Afghan government. In return, the United States agreed to withdraw all remaining American forces within 14 months.

However, this deal had problems, you could say. For starters, the Afghan government had little say in the agreement. It was mostly left out of it. Not only that, the Taliban never actually committed to a ceasefire in the deal…Taliban attacks literally continued on Afghan forces after the deal was signed. 

But the deal was already done, and the logic was clear…every American presidential administration since 2001 had tried to “win” this war. None had succeeded. Americans were so done with this war. It was time to admit there was no military solution and get out.

-A Chaotic Exit-

Well, when Joe Biden became the next president, he inherited this Doha Accord. As the 14-month withdrawal deadline approached, his military advisors were split. Some wanted to maintain a small residual force indefinitely to prevent the Taliban from taking over. Others argued that any continued American presence was just delaying the inevitable. Biden, who had been skeptical of Afghan nation-building since his time as Vice President, sided with the second group.

On April 14, 2021, Biden announced that American troops would be fully withdrawn by September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the attacks that started the whole thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDdFItbqOz4 

And then things…completely fell apart.

In the following months, the Taliban began seizing district after district. Afghan security forces, which included more than 300,000 trained soldiers, equipped with American weapons and technology, seemed to just melt away. Some fought hard and died bravely. Many surrendered. Others went home. Years of corruption, years of poor leadership by now president Ashraf Ghani ….years of ghost soldiers on payrolls, years of dependence on American air support that was no longer coming…well it all caught up with the Afghan army at the worst possible moment. By mid-August, the Taliban had completely surrounded Kabul. On August 15, Ghani was gone. He fled Afghanistan. Within hours, the Taliban were in the presidential palace, sitting in the chairs of the government that had spent 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars struggling to establish itself.

The scenes from Kabul Airport were heartbreaking and chaotic. Thousands of Afghans who had worked with Americans, who had believed in the project of building a new Afghanistan, who were terrified of Taliban rule, rushed to the airport hoping to get the heck out of there. The world saw scenes of people clinging to the outside of departing aircraft. Babies being handed over fences to soldiers. Desperate crowds, crushing in the heat. 

On August 26th, an ISIS-K terrorist blew himself up at one of the airport’s busiest entrances, killing 13 American service members and dozens of Afghan civilians. The last American troops left Afghanistan on August 30, 2021. The war was over.^10

-Legacy-

After all that, the Taliban won. They won because they weren’t destroyed.

Today, the Taliban’s victory in the War in Afghanistan is often seen as one of the most significant underdog victories in modern history. The Taliban fought against a superpower that spent 2.3 TRILLION dollars and had much more advanced technology. After the war ended, the Taliban resumed treating women like second-class citizens. Many of the as many as 250,000 Afghans who helped Americans during the war remained there with no guarantees of their protection. Humanitarian aid into Afghanistan stopped. 

At the time of this recording, though, the Taliban are still in power.

The War in Afghanistan was a war that left behind a trail of broken promises, reversed freedoms, and a grim reminder of the limits of military power in the graveyard of empires. More than 3500 American and coalition troops died. The human toll in Afghanistan was far worse. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented over 100,000 civilian casualties between 2009 and 2021 alone. Total civilian deaths over the full 20 years likely numbered hundreds of thousands when you include indirect causes like the three “Ds”....displacement, disease, and destroyed infrastructure. Nobody knows exactly how many Taliban fighters died, but we do know that more than 5 million Afghans were displaced from their homes over the course of the war.

Ok, so the question everyone asks. Was it freaking worth it?

Well, the war did result in bin Laden being killed and the sharp decline of al-Qaeda in the region. After all, al-Qaeda hasn’t successfully launched another big attack on the United States ever since. In the 20 years of American occupation, millions of Afghan girls went to school who never would have otherwise. Life expectancy increased significantly. A whole generation of Afghans grew up in a much freer society than their parents would have known. 

That matters. 
Clone: But…
But…
The initial objective…which remember was destroying al-Qaeda and killing bin Laden, was mostly accomplished by late 2001. Who are we kidding, man. Everything after that was mission creep. Nation-building in one of the world’s most complex, tribal, and historically ungovernable countries was never a realistic goal. We spent 20 years and trillions of dollars training an Afghan army that collapsed in weeks. We propped up a corrupt government that ultimately lacked the legitimacy to survive, mostly because it was propped by the “occupiers.” Most importantly, the war created more terrorists than it killed. And the end result was exactly what would have happened anyway- the Taliban is back in power. What was the freaking point?

In my opinion, the biggest lesson from this war is that…you can win every battle but still lose the war if you don’t have a good plan for what happens after the shooting stops.

Every war has lessons if you’re willing to look for them. What did the United States learn from 20 years in Afghanistan?

Hopefully, some humility. Just because you’re the world’s military superpower doesn’t mean you can solve all the world’s problems.

Thanks to Noah Taylor and Joseph Hall-Patton for sharing their experiences as veterans fighting in the War in Afghanistan. Noah just so happens to be running for the U.S. Senate right now here in Kansas, and Joe, of course, aka the Cynical Historian, is a long-time friend and a historian who has a wonderful YouTube channel that you should subscribe to dad gomit. 

Obviously, I left a lot out, and as always, I encourage you to research The War in Afghanistan further. Here’s one book I used to research this video. Carter Malkasian’s The American War in Afghanistan. As always, I’ve listed the rest of the sources I referenced for this video in the description. You should read books. (long dramatic pause) Thank you for staying curious.
_____________________________________
^1. https://www.warcosts.org/conflicts/afghanistan
^2. https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now
^3. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/10/18/how-the-horse-soldiers-helped-liberate-afghanistan-from-the-taliban-18-years-ago/
^4. ChartsBin. "Countries Currently Contributing Troops to ISAF". ChartsBin. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021.
^5. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol17/iss3/6/
^6. O'Hanlon, Michael E."Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2011, The Brookings Institution, September/October 2010.
^7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0o4-jhnaGs
^8. Dodds, Paisley; Baldor, Lolita C. (May 6, 2011). "Al-Qaida vows revenge for Osama bin Laden's death". Fox News. Associated Press.
^9. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-afghanistan-middle-east-strikes-civilian-deaths
^10. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-08-30/the-war-in-afghanistan-is-officially-over

Sources/further reading:
The American War in Afghanistan: A History by Carter Malkasian 
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3PkVgaT 
https://apnews.com/article/----50d29d8b2d444fdcb963d38dd792e21f 
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins 
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4w7EYma 
No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes by Anand Gopal
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4n2QyLg 
Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan by Rajiv Chandrasenkaran
Purchase Here: https://amzn.to/4d0jP4W 
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/9/11/taliban-offered-bin-laden-trial-before-9 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NHTovOwiok&t 
The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/4cKxcr0 
How to Lose a War: The Story of America’s Intervention in Afghanistan
Purchase here: https://amzn.to/3OC1mDG 
https://www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Frieden/Body_Count_first_international_edition_2015_final.pdf 
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2021/08/16/the-talibans-victory-proves-the-west-has-failed-to-learn-the-lessons-of-the-past/ 
https://www.britannica.com/event/Afghanistan-War 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan
https://apnews.com/article/middle-east-business-afghanistan-43d8f53b35e80ec18c130cd683e1a38f
The American Pageant. (16th edition). Cengage Learning.
The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People (9th edition)
America Through the Lens (National Geographic)
Bergen, Peter. The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda (2011). Free Press.


Creative commons credits:
Callum Darragh 
Todd Huffman
EFarid 
Tufail Hassan
Tohma 
Ben Schumin
Umar Muzammil
Fibonacci Blue
_____________________________________
^1. https://www.warcosts.org/conflicts/afghanistan
^2. https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-war-afghanistan-twenty-years-public-opinion-then-and-now
^3. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/10/18/how-the-horse-soldiers-helped-liberate-afghanistan-from-the-taliban-18-years-ago/
^4. ChartsBin. "Countries Currently Contributing Troops to ISAF". ChartsBin. Archived from the original on 25 August 2021.
^5. https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/jss/vol17/iss3/6/
^6. O'Hanlon, Michael E."Staying Power: The U.S. Mission in Afghanistan Beyond 2011, The Brookings Institution, September/October 2010.
^7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0o4-jhnaGs
^8. Dodds, Paisley; Baldor, Lolita C. (May 6, 2011). "Al-Qaida vows revenge for Osama bin Laden's death". Fox News. Associated Press.
^9. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-afghanistan-middle-east-strikes-civilian-deaths
^10. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-08-30/the-war-in-afghanistan-is-officially-over​
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