The war in Afghanistan in which the United States is still engaged in some way started in December 2001. It was launched to punish the Taliban government that then ruled from Kabul and had given a sanctuary to Al Qaeda which the Islamic group used to train its followers to attack the United States. They wanted the Americans out of the region in which their country was located. It was this trained group that managed to infiltrate the United States and hijack four planes, two of which hit the iconic high rise trade towers in New York's Manhattan south. The towers crashed and killed more than 3,000 people of several nationalities, most of them Americans. George W Bush who was then the president of the United States vowed to take revenge. In December 2001, he sent in American troops who, aligned with an Afghan group called the "Northern Alliance", marched into Kabul. The Taliban rulers fled, several finding their way into Pakistan, the country's neighbour in the south.

The Americans followed the fleeing Taliban leaders who then took refuge in the villages in the southwest of the country from which they launched hit-and-run attacks on the American forces. This war lasted for two decades; it was the longest war the United States was to fight in its 250 years history. The United States was not the first global power that tried to establish control over Afghanistan. It was preceded by the British when they ruled over India and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR, which sent in its troops in 1979 and withdrew ten years later. The British sent their forces into Afghanistan but were beaten back. Then drew what came to........

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