Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, kicked off at midnight on October 7, 2001, with Lt. Gen. Mike Delon, deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, the direct commander of the war, and at the beginning of the battle, the U.S. military carried out large-scale airstrikes on all of Afghanistan, bombing until the early hours of the morning, effortlessly hitting all targets, and by early November, U.S. special forces arrived in Afghanistan with the intention of capturing Mazar-e-Sharif, which had access to the main routes to the east, west, and south. Under the guidance of the U.S. Army Special Forces A Combat Detachment, Mazar-e-Sharif was blown up by the U.S. Air Force, and then they told General Dutham of the Northern Alliance that the enemy had been destroyed in one fell swoop, and General Dostum ordered his thousand soldiers to rush to Mazar-e-Sharif on warhorses, and as a result, the hidden fire inside Mazar-i-Sharif opened fire, General Dutham lost one-tenth of his strength in an instant, and the rest of the people turned around and ran.
The furious general took a lot of effort to regroup the soldiers who had run everywhere one by one, and then came to the US special forces to ask for the guilt, the US army replied, "I don't know what this is, then bomb again, and then Mazar-e-Sharif was blown into a sea of fire again, and an hour later, more than 8,000 Taliban soldiers who were isolated on all sides were forced to surrender, and then according to afghan tradition, General Dutham, who only had 900 people, suddenly had nearly 10,000 people. Mike Delon, who is far away in the United States, reports to President Bush: We have won this war. The generals of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called to congratulate them, but no one knew how many of the surrendered soldiers were lurking.
Buildings of the United Nations-affiliated mine-clearing organizations
On 13 November, General Dostum began his advance towards kabul, the Afghan capital, where the Taliban withdrew overnight, the decision was made within 24 hours, and was therefore still relatively hasty, with all heavy weapons, such as tanks and armored vehicles, unspoiled. The reason is also that the Taliban lack the explosives necessary to destroy these weapons, the problem is that in less than two hours, the Taliban's nearly 30,000 Taliban troops disappeared without firing a single shot, heavy weapons were almost completely preserved, and light weapons were completely taken with them. There were no scenes of collective surrender, the strategic shift was fully organized and planned, and the United States and Britain found no sign of the Taliban massing the above-mentioned troops moving toward the mountains. This complicates the problem even more.
Kabul has become a ruined city, with the wreckage of T54, T55, T62 tanks and BMP1 armored personnel carriers everywhere. It is not clear whether this was left over from the soviets, the Taliban, or the warlords in the melee. About 5 kilometers from the northern suburbs to the city center, it was all in ruins, the Bombs of the Us Army almost blew up the Central Asian country back to the Stone Age, the Northern Alliance army entered the city, the entire urban area was almost completely under military control, and a curfew was imposed after 9 p.m. During the day, the Northern Alliance also set up checkpoints in various regions. Subsequently, Anglo-American, Russian and Japanese personnel of various backgrounds arrived in Kabul one after another. At least hundreds of civilians have been publicly executed and brutally killed in the streets on the grounds that they had all helped the Taliban, and the Western media have certainly turned a blind eye to the indiscriminate killings carried out by the Northern Alliance after entering the city of Kabul.
Bin Laden's residence
The Ministry of Defense of the Kamal regime in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation era has been bombed beyond recognition. It stands alone on the northern outskirts of the capital, showing the importance of the Ministry of Defense in the Afghan government at that time. Two kilometres away is a training camp for bin Laden's al-Qaida, which the United States accused of. The entire building was completely damaged. After the first round of cruise missile attacks by the US military, three buildings of the United Nations mine clearance organization were "accidentally bombed", which became an important news in this war, one of the three buildings collapsed in half, and the other two were basically destroyed, leaving a crater of about 7 meters, but the outline could still be seen.
Confidential room
The other one was even more outrageous. The reliability of gps-guided bombs is doubtful when a child was killed in front of a Soviet-aided residential building, and at least 500 meters away was the Taliban Army Center, where many 54 and T55 tanks were still parked. In particular, it is extremely susceptible to interference, and the phenomenon of unexploded is serious. For example, one of three GPS-guided bombs dropped on the mayor's residence in Kabul was not bombed, and bin Laden's house consisted of a two-storey main building, a bungalow annex and a two-storey annex. The three houses look basically intact on the outside. The roof left a hole of about a meter or so, and then penetrated the side wall, the contact angle was about 45 degrees, the interior of the house left an unexploded missile wreckage, in the basement of the main building a room obviously belonged to the confidential room, about 3 file cabinet doors open, piled up with a lot of Western magazines, paper, documents, a mess.
Where have people gone? This is the Northern Alliance, the United States and Britain urgently need to find the answer, obviously the US bombing is not the most important reason for the Taliban to implement strategic retreat, a large number of Taliban tanks, armored vehicles after the bombing is still well preserved has shown that the US bombing is by no means a decisive blow. The Taliban mainly lost heavy weapons and cars, the casualties were not large, and in the battle to guard the Kandahar air base, 500 soldiers were carpet bombed by B-52 bombers, and only 8 people were killed in the 8-day battle, mainly in the process of vehicle movement. The Taliban forces guarding Kandahar were at least 20,000 strong, and despite the American bombing, the Taliban forces once recaptured the lost Kandahar airfield, showing that the bombing was not a decisive blow. Countless Western military observers have generally believed that in the early stage of the war, the powerful electromagnetic bombardment of the US military completely failed the communication, command, control, and intelligence systems of the Taliban troops, resulting in chaotic command of the troops. However, this judgment proved not to be true. In the course of the war, the Taliban maintained effective contact with the Taliban's troops throughout the national battlefield through high-frequency communications at 7 and 8 o'clock every morning.
However, U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was particularly excited, he thought that the United States had won a complete victory, and began to discuss with Mike Delon how to "help Hamid Karzai, who has been dying all the time", Hamid Karzai had returned to Afghanistan on a motorcycle across the Pakistani border, and the U.S. military airdropped equipment, weapons, supplies and the 574th Special Operations Detachment of the U.S. Army Special Forces A Combat Unit, plus Karzai's 150 men. The goal is to seize Kandahar to establish prestige for Hamid Karzai in order to come to power in the future, sources claim that Kandahar is completely in chaos, a large number of Taliban fighters have left the city, and the supreme leader Omar has also mysteriously disappeared, Hamid Karzai and the U.S. military commander have discussed, he believes that the key to winning the Battle of Kandahar is the town of Tallinn Coptic in the city of Kandahar, which is the hometown of Omar, where almost all the families of the Taliban leaders live, Therefore, taking the town would seriously damage the morale of the Taliban, all Pashtuns would fight for the Americans, and as long as the mountain pass leading to the town was blocked, the town of Tallinn Coptic would surrender
The 574th Special Operations Detachment consisted of 2 officers and 10 non-commissioned officers, the leader of the team, Captain Amelin, made a siege plan, because the number of troops was too small, Captain Amerin told Karzai that they needed more manpower, the gang stopped in a small village southwest of the town of Tallinn Copte, the U.S. army airdropped a large number of weapons, Karzai began to recruit, hundreds of people came to try to get the weapons, but most people were only interested in collecting weapons, few people were willing to go to tallinn Coptic town, November 16, Karzai told Captain Amerin that there was an uprising in the town of Tallinn Coptic, the control of the town had fallen into the hands of Karzai's people, hoping that the Americans would rush to help, Captain Amerin was in a dilemma, he thought that Karzai's army was too small, if it entered the town of Tallinn Coptic and the Taliban launched a counterattack may be dangerous, but Captain Amelin also felt that he had the trump card of the United States Air Force, and used this opportunity to quickly seize the town, you can try,
The 574th Special Operations Detachment decided to go immediately to the town of Tallinn Coptic, Karzai got a bunch of mixed vehicles and carried everyone on the mountain road leading to the town, and on the night of arriving in the town, Karzai was busy recruiting supporters, while Captain Amelin learned from the line population that a powerful Taliban was approaching the town and might arrive sometime the next day, Captain Amerin was ready to fight back against the threat, but Karzai did not listen, because it was the first day of Ramadan, he wanted to drink tea, Eating, chatting, Captain Amelin quickly returned to the camp to tell his men to prepare, ordered the correspondent to contact the command to let the Air Force and Navy know about the impending attack, and then issued weapons to the newly recruited Afghans, working until late at night, after midnight, the Air Force found a convoy approaching, Captain Amelin ordered the Air Force to drop bombs, and then the 574th Special Operations Detachment drove 30 Afghans to a high ground outside the town to establish an observation point, where the road to Kandahar could be observed. The road crossed the southern end of a valley where the Taliban's convoy would enter from the pass on the other side, giving the U.S. troops the opportunity to use close air support to eliminate the enemy before the engagement, while 30 Afghans were responsible for serving as cannon fodder in front of the U.S. troops to prevent the Taliban from rushing towards the U.S. forces.
In the early morning of November 17, dozens of Taliban vehicles came from the mountain pass, the 574th Special Operations Detachment immediately called the Air Force for close air support, the first bomb destroyed the leading vehicle, just when the Americans thought that the goddess of victory fell to their side, the inexplicable incident occurred, Karzai's soldiers jumped on the vehicle in panic and ran towards the town of Tallinn Coptic, the Americans could not figure out what was happening, some Americans stood in front of the vehicle and asked them to stop, But they were unable to communicate with the panicked and non-English-speaking Afghans, and as a result, the Afghans insisted on leaving, and the Americans, fearing that they would be thrown away, had to jump into the truck and return to the town, Captain Amelin, who had returned to the town, met with Karzai, and after a round of discussion, the Americans took a new group of Afghans to set up another observation post at a new location closer to the town.
There were another airstrike on the approaching Taliban, and unfortunately a bomb mistakenly dropped by a B-52 bomber exploded near Karzai, fragments of the bomb scratched his face, Karzai was so mad that he ran back to town with his men, and by 8 o'clock the Taliban found another route. The Americans began to hear the firing of flanking light weapons, and then disappeared, the Taliban retreated to Kandahar, and on December 7, Karzai arrived in Kandahar, at this time he only had to go into the city to accept the surrender of the Taliban, and completed the Battle of Kandahar, and like Kabul, the Taliban troops guarding Kandahar were at least twenty thousand and were wiped out without a trace, and Lieutenant General Mike Delong was ecstatic, declaring that the American army had done in only two months what the Soviet army had not done for ten years.
After repeated shelling and bombardment, the land of Afghanistan seems to have been torn apart, full of ruins and craters, and the sky is dark again before about two o'clock in the afternoon. The wind drove the pedestrians on the street with dust, sometimes roaring, as if crying, as if the end had arrived, the war brought the country back to the 19th century, nearly 750,000 Afghan refugees fled their homes, there is no doubt that this is the most bizarre war so far, a dozen American troops plus hundreds of unarmed rabble have actually built a country, won inexplicably, lost inexplicably, but the Americans think that they have won this war completely and absolutely,
However, the Taliban's initial strategic retreat was nothing more than a psychological fear of the high-tech and elite special forces of the US military, and when the Afghans found that the combat effectiveness of the US special forces soldiers was mediocre in the subsequent battles (especially in Operation Python on March 1, 2002, when three Taliban suppressed hundreds of green berets and SEALs for several days and nights, killing eight people), they felt that the combat effectiveness of US special forces soldiers was not as good as that of ordinary Soviet soldiers, and the air strike efficiency was also quite low (Operation Python dropped 5,000 bombs, Only a dozen people were killed), wave after wave of counteroffensives began, and continues to this day, in December 2001, all the cities in Afghanistan were in the hands of the U.S. military, and by 2020, the U.S. army, like the Soviet army of that year, shrunk to the remaining kabul and Kandahar next to the few bases no longer go out.
Detailed battle history of Operation Python See here the decision-making process and battle details of the Battle of Takurgar of the U.S. Army