Integrity Score 380
No Records Found
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Chapter 2 continues…
The USA started avenging on October 7 by dropping bombs on Afghanistan with President Bush declaring that beginning of war against the Taleban and their guest Osama bin Laden. With cruise missile attacks on Taleban military targets and Al-Qaeda installations, the USA and UK maintained that since the Taleban were not ready to cooperate in its war against terrorism there was no option but to strike. There were vehement protests in the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Peshawar and large demonstrations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Lahore against the US strikes on Afghanistan.
As bombardment on Afghanistan continued, the political strategy to install a new regime in Kabul made discernable progress. Washington tried to assemble a durable coalition that would replace the Taleban. Complications on power sharing became evident when the ethnically dominant Pashtuns refused to accept the Northern Alliance which was predominantly dominated by Uzbeks and Tajiks as the leaders. The USA also understood that some groups within the country would not turn against the Taleban unless they understood what kind of regime was to follow and also are promised a role in the future regime.
It was a shift of policy adopted by the USA in mid-October, 2001 that paved the way for a Northern Alliance takeover in Kabul. Earlier the USA had shied away from carrying out the strikes against the Taleban frontline troops that blocked the Northern Alliance from moving toward Kabul or Mazar-e-Sharif. The US refused to wait anymore for diplomats to break a stalemate over who should lead a post-war government.
Deep division among the Afghans and the regional states that encouraged their proxies for more than two decades led to complications on the agreement relating to power-sharing in a post-Taleban scenario. The US overcame its previous reservations about backing the Northern Alliance and launched a major airlift to supply Afghanistan’s rebel forces with arms and ammunition for a major ground offensive.
To be continued….