Key Figures of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Key Figures of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — page 7
KEY FIGURES OF 12 THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN the Soviet forces led to their departure a decade later In the void civil war reigned with the Islamist fighters known as the mujahideen battling first to oust the Soviet backed government and then turning their guns on each other In 1996 the Taliban seized Kabul and instituted a severe interpretation of Islamic law that for exam ple forbade female education and prescribed the severing of hands or even execution as punishment for petty crimes That same year al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was welcomed to Afghanistan having been expelled from Sudan and established his organization's headquarters there With al Qaeda s help the Taliban had won control of over 90 per cent of Afghan territory by the summer of 2001 On September 9 of that year al Qaeda hit men carried out the assassination of famed mujahideen leader Ahmad Shah Massoud who at the time was leading the Northern Alliance a loose coalition of mujahi deen militias that maintained control of a small section of northern Afghanistan as it battled the Taliban and who had unsuccessfully sought greater U S backing for his efforts THE U S BRITISH IN VASION After the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States for which bin Laden was considered the architect the United States demanded that