Key events of US intervention

> On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks, US president George W. Bush launches operation “Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, after the Taleban regime refuses to hand over Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. > Some 1,000 American soldiers are deployed on the ground in November, rising to 10,000 the year after. > In 2008, the American command on the ground calls for manpower to carry out an effective strategy. Bush agrees to send additional soldiers. > In 2009, in the first months of the presidency of Barack Obama there is a surge in the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan to around 68,000. > In December, Obama raises the strength of US forces in Afghanistan to around 100,000. > In Sept. 2014, Afghanistan signs a security accord with the US and a similar text with Nato: 12,500 foreign soldiers, of which 9,800 are Americans, will remain in the country in 2015, after the end of the Nato combat mission at the end of 2014. > On October 3, 2015, at the height of combat between insurgents and the Afghan army, backed by Nato special forces, a US airstrike bombs a hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontiers in northern Kunduz province, killing 42. > On April 13, 2017, the United States military drops the largest non-nuclear bomb it has ever used in combat, hitting Daesh positions, killing around 96 militants . > On February 1, 2017, a US government report says that losses of Afghan security forces have climbed by 35 percent in 2016 compared with the previous year. > On February 9, the United States general in command of the Nato force, General John Nicholson, warns that he needs thousands more troops, telling Congress: “I believe we’re in a stalemate.” > On August 21 Trump cleared the way for the deployment of thousands more United States troops to Afghanistan in his first formal address to the nation as commander-in-chief. —