The Graveyard of Empires

On September 11, 2001, 19 hijackers — 15 of them Saudi nationals — flew commercial airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field. Nearly 3,000 people died. The operation was planned and ordered from Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda operated under the protection of the Taliban government.

President Bush issued an ultimatum: surrender bin Laden or share his fate. The Taliban, bound by the Pashtun code of nanawatai — the obligation to protect a guest — refused. Bush ordered the invasion.

Operation Enduring Freedom began on October 7. But the United States deliberately chose not to invade with a large army. CIA paramilitary teams parachuted into Afghanistan with suitcases full of cash. Special Forces soldiers on horseback called in B-52 strikes on Taliban positions from satellite phones. The Northern Alliance — the anti-Taliban coalition that had fought for years — provided the ground forces.

The approach worked with startling speed. Mazar-i-Sharif fell on November 9. Kabul fell on November 13. Kandahar — the Taliban heartland — fell on December 7. In seven weeks, the Taliban government that had ruled most of Afghanistan since 1996 had collapsed.

What happened next would define the next 20 years. At Tora Bora in December 2001, US forces surrounded the mountain complex where bin Laden was trapped. CIA officers on the ground pleaded for US Army Rangers to block escape routes into Pakistan. The request was denied. Bin Laden escaped. The Taliban's senior leadership melted across the border. The war had ended — and immediately started again.