2001 war in Afghanistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan , is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically... important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman. The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures.
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The War in Afghanistan began when the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan took power in a military coup, known as the Saur... Revolution, on 27 April 1978. Most of Afghanistan subsequently experienced uprisings against the Marxist-Leninist PDPA government. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979 to keep the Afghan PDPA communists in power. Afghanistan's resistance forces, known as the mujahideen, fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Some factions received support by the United States, with the Pakistani ISI serving as the U.S. middleman, and Saudi Arabia. The Soviet Union had to withdraw its troops in February 1989. The Soviet-backed Afghan communist regime survived for three more years until the fall of Kabul in 1992. In 1992, the Afghan political parties agreed on the Peshawar Accords which established the Islamic State of Afghanistan and appointed an interim government. Militia leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was opposed to the agreement and with Pakistani support started a bombardment campaign against Kabul.
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Operation Red Wings was a combined / joint military operation that took place in the Pech District of Afghanistan's Kunar Province, on the slopes of... a mountain named Sawtalo Sar, approximately 20 miles west of Kunar's provincial capital of Asadabad, in Late June through Mid-July 2005. The goal of Operation Red Wings was the disruption of Anti-Coalition Militia activity in the region in order to further aid the stabilization efforts of the region for the upcoming September 18, 2005 Afghan National Parliamentary Elections. Anti-Coalition Militia activity in the region was carried out at the time most notably by a small group led by a local man who had aspirations of regional Islamic fundamentalist prominence named Ahmad Shah, hence he and his small group would be one of the primary targets of the operation. Operation Red Wings, conceived by the 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Marine Regiment of the U.S.
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Operation Accius is the Canadian military's contribution to the civilian-led United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan . On November 28, 2002,... the Minister of National Defence John McCallum announced that a senior Canadian Forces officer by the name of Lieutenant Colonel David Ross would be deployed to Afghanistan to serve as the military advisor to UNAMA. The UNAMA Military Advisory Unit comprises officers of the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel or equivalent from several nations, under the command of a Brigadier-General. Using the Kabul UNAMA office as a main base, the military liaison officers have several tasks, the most important of which is to provide timely military advice to the Kabul-based Special Representative to the Secretary-General. They routinely work at UN regional offices outside Kabul. The prime concerns of the military liaison officers are disarmament, demobilization and reintegration , which are handled by the UN through the “Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme.
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The Taliban insurgency began shortly after the group's fall from power following the 2001 war in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces are fighting against... the Afghan government, which is led by President Hamid Karzai. It is also fighting against the US-led International Security Assistance Force . The insurgency has also spread to some degree over the Durand Line border to neighboring Pakistan, in particular the Waziristan region and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The Taliban conduct low-intensity warfare against the Afghan National Security Forces and their NATO trainers. Regional countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran, are often accused for funding and supporting the insurgent groups. The spiritual leader of the Taliban is Mulla Omar who heads the Quetta Shura. The Haqqani Network, Hezbi Islami, and smaller al Qaida groups have also joined the insurgency. They often use terrorist attacks in which their victims are usually Afghan civilians. According to reports by the United Nations and others, the insurgents were responsible for 75-80% of civilian casualties between 2009 to 2011.
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Operation Mountain Thrust was a NATO and Afghan-led operation in the war in Afghanistan, with more than 2,300 U.S., 3,300 British troops, 2,200... Canadian troops, about 3,500 Afghan soldiers and large air support. Its primary objective was to quell the ongoing Taliban insurgency in the south of the country. There was heavy fighting during June and July 2006, with Afghanistan seeing the bloodiest period since the fall of the Taliban regime. The Taliban showed great coordination in their attacks, even capturing two districts of Helmand province at the end of July, which were retaken a few days later. The Taliban suffered during the fighting more than 1,100 killed and close to 400 captured. Heavy aerial bombing was the main factor. But even so the coalition forces had close to 150 soldiers killed and 40 Afghan policemen captured by the Taliban. Tom Koenigs, the top U.N. official in Afghanistan, told the German news weekly Der Spiegel that the Taliban numbers of casualties do not reflect success. "The Taliban fighters reservoir is practically limitless," Koenigs told the magazine in an interview. "The movement will not be overcome by high casualty figures.
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