Operation Enduring Freedom is a US-led combat operation fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, the Philippines, and parts of Africa. Its primary objective was to capture Osama Bin Laden, but it also aimed to stabilize Afghanistan and prevent the emergence of terrorist cells. Troops provided training to Afghan military and police forces and participated in the drug war. The war has faced international criticism, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan led to an increase in insurgencies. NATO took over combat operations in Iraq, while the US remained in Afghanistan to provide support.
Operation Enduring Freedom is an American-led combat operation supporting the Global War on Terror (GWOT) active in Afghanistan, the Philippines and parts of Africa. People often use “Operation Enduring Freedom” just to describe American combat operations in Afghanistan. Together with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the operation aims to bring stability to Afghanistan and prevent the emergence of terrorist cells in the region.
Combat operations in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, in the wake of terrorist attacks on the United States believed to have originated from Al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization active in Afghanistan. Under the Bush Doctrine, the United States indicated it would aggressively prosecute nations that harbored terrorists or allowed terrorist cells to exist, a departure from traditional counterterrorism policies, which usually distinguished between terrorists and the governments that harbored them. Claiming that Afghanistan and its ruling Taliban regime were directly contributing to terrorism, the United States launched an air assault and ground invasion with the backing of a coalition of nations.
The primary objective of Operation Enduring Freedom was to capture Osama Bin Laden, the terrorist believed to be responsible for the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and caused significant damage to the Pentagon. In this goal, the operation was unsuccessful, but the American-led coalition of forces managed to overthrow the Taliban and temporarily stabilize the country. Unfortunately, the 2003 invasion of Iraq led the United States to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, causing an increase in insurgencies in the region.
In addition to fighting terrorism, troops associated with Operation Enduring Freedom have also provided training to the Afghan military and police forces, with the goal of transferring the nation’s security to its people. Troops also participated in the drug war in Afghanistan, attempting to control the cultivation of the opium poppy and the sale of opium and its derivatives. In 2006, NATO began taking over combat operations in Iraq, with the United States providing a huge percentage of the total forces in the area.
The war in Afghanistan has attracted a great deal of international criticism from a variety of perspectives. One of the major problems faced by the architects of Operation Enduring Freedom was the power vacuum left by the collapse of the Taliban. The organizers’ concern was that by leaving Iraq, coalition forces would leave the country vulnerable to invasion from neighboring countries, or inadvertently contribute to the emergence of a dictatorship. As a result, troops were forced to remain in Afghanistan to provide support while ISAF worked to create a secure and stable state.
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