NATO Forces in Afghanistan Hand Over Security Responsibility
June 18, 2013
NATO forces in Afghanistan today handed over responsibility for security for the whole country to Afghan troops for the first time since NATO forces invaded the country in 2001. At a ceremony in Kabul, the capital, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that “our own security and military forces will lead all the security activities.” There are currently 350,000 Afghans in uniform. NATO troops will remain in Afghanistan through 2014, providing military back-up when needed.
In Doha, capital of Qatar, a Taliban spokesperson, Mohammed Naim, declared today in a televised speech that the Taliban is prepared to take the first step toward peace negotiations with the Afghan government. The Taliban, a militant Islamic group that was once aligned with Al-Qa`ida, has tried for decades to establish a united Islamic state in Afghanistan. Naim noted that their political and military goals “are limited to Afghanistan” and that they did not wish to “harm other countries.”
The Taliban has spent much of the past 12 years hiding in the rugged terrain along the Afghan-Pakistan border, from which they organized military raids into Afghanistan. © Piers Benatar, Panos Pictures
The Taliban announcement is the first indication that the chief antagonists in the Afghanistan War are interested in ending the 12-year conflict. NATO forces, led by the United States military, entered Afghanistan to rout Al-Qa`ida, the terrorist organization that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. NATO ended up fighting the Taliban. The Taliban, which had gained control of most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990′s, had allowed Osama Bin Laden to establish his Al-Qa`ida headquarters and terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Driven from power in 2001, the Taliban has been battling NATO forces ever since.
Additional World Book articles:
- Afghanistan 2001 (a Back in Time article)
- Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)
