During the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on 9/11 in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, nearly 3,000 people died. Ultimately, the militant group al-Qaeda, and its leader Osama Bin Laden, emerged as the culprits. When they refused to hand him over, the U.S. stepped in with the military quickly removing the Taliban and vowing to support democracy and eliminate the terrorist threat. The militant group fell apart and later regathered. NATO allies joined the U.S. and a new Afghan government took over in 2004, but the deadly Taliban attacks continued. Former President Barack Obama’s “troop surge” in 2009 helped push back the Taliban, but his actions didn’t stop them in the long term according to AP news.
At the end of 2014, known as the bloodiest year since 2001, NATO’s international forces put an end to their combat mission, leaving the responsibility for security to the Afghan army. In doing this, the Taliban gained momentum and seized more territory. Talk of peace between the Taliban and the U.S. began tentatively with the Afghan government relatively uninvolved, and the agreement on withdrawal came in February 2020 in Qatar. But the U.S. counter attacks did not stop the continuing Taliban attacks. The Taliban switched their focus to Afghan security forces and civilians, and targeted assassinations. Their areas of control grew.
As part of the Doha Agreement, the Trump administration agreed to an initial reduction of U.S. forces from 13,000 to 8,600 troops by July 2020, followed by a complete withdrawal by May 1, 2021, if the Taliban kept its commitments. In April 2021, President Joe Biden announced that U.S. military forces would leave Afghanistan by September 2021. That May, the U.S. military accelerated the pace of its troop withdrawal. By the end of July 2021, the United States had completed nearly 95% of its withdrawal, leaving just 650 troops to protect the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The Taliban, which had continued to capture and contest territory across the country despite ongoing peace talks with the Afghan government, ramped up attacks on Afghan National Defense and Security Forces according to CNN.
As of August 29th, 2021, the Taliban sealed their control with the Afghanistan people, pouring into the capital, Kabul, and meeting little resistance as President Ashraf Ghani fled the country. As the government collapsed and chaos arose, tens of thousands of people tried to escape. The U.S. Embassy warned Americans to not head to the airport in Kabul after reports that the facility caught fire and stated that the situation remained unstable. The U.S. The State Department said that all embassy personnel had been removed according to History.