The Taliban’s march in the nation has indeed been remarkably quick after 20 years of US engagement, thousands of fatalities, and at least $1 trillion in losses – and this is just a keep looking back into how the scenario progressed to where it is today:
Only about a month after al Qaeda-linked terrorists conducted out the 9/11 attacks, American and allied forces launch Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, with the goal of preventing the Taliban from creating a safe haven for al Qaeda and preventing al Qaeda from using Afghanistan as just a staging ground for terror acts.
The Taliban’s last significant stronghold fell on Dec. 7, 2001, when Kandahar surrendered. Ever since, the Taliban has tried to gain territory in Afghanistan during the time that US forces have indeed been stationed there, as well as during numerous US administration.
In January 2017, the Taliban addressed an opinion piece to then-newly elected US President Donald Trump, urging him to pull US troops out of Afghanistan.
There have been initiatives at peace negotiations between the US and the Taliban between 2017 and 2019 that never resulted in an accord.
Trump declared the resumption of settlement talks with the Taliban during one surprise trip to Afghanistan in November 2019 with US troops for a Thanksgiving visit. In December of the same year, the peace negotiations restarted in Doha, Qatar.
In February 2020, the US and the Taliban reached an unprecedented agreement, setting in motion the possibility of a full departure of US soldiers from Afghanistan. The “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” outlined a series of pledges by the US and the Taliban on military levels, counter-terrorism, and intra-Afghan talks, all with the goal of achieving “a durable and complete truce.”
According to data submitted towards the Pentagon’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, with in week after the signing of the Trump administration’s peace pact well with Taliban, the insurgent organisation boosted its attacks against America’s Afghan partners to greater than usual levels.
The consultative Loya Jirga, Afghanistan’s grand assembly of elders, voted a resolution in August 2020 calling for the freedom of the last batch of 5,000 Taliban detainees, setting the door for direct peace process with the insurgent group to conclude nearly two decades of conflict. The 400 detainees were released as part of a February agreement between the US and the Taliban.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as well as the Biden administration offered a temporary power-sharing arrangement only with Taliban to the Afghan government in March 2021.
President Biden declared in April 2021 that the United States would remove its military from Afghanistan by September 2021.
Just after Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August, barely months after the US began withdrawing troops, the Biden administration rushed in 5,000 troops.
After seizing control of every major city in Afghanistan except Kabul in under two weeks, the Taliban met with the government in the capital on Aug. 15 to discuss who would run the country.
After President Ghani departed the nation, the Taliban are closing in on full control of the country and have taken the presidential palace in Kabul. Ghani’s resignation appears to have scuttled earlier talks to form an interim administration.
