War in Iraq and Afganistan - Essay Example

They were office workers, waiters, police, firemen, moms, dads, friends and neighbors. Thereafter began an era of hunting for the terrorists and their links. It involved gathering info from everywhere with techniques like cyber-snooping. Attention was diverted towards Afghanistan as there was no regime as such. The ruling combine called Taliban did not believe in human rights and controlled the country with terror at gun point. Women were treated like third class citizens, not allowed to attend public functions and schools.

One prosperous sheikh from Saudi Arab called Osama Bin Laden was there to help the regime with finances and arms. He had his own set of people ranging from nuclear scientists, engineers, villagers and other trusted lieutenants around him. They had their own ideology of calling the countries like US, UK, India, Israel etc. as the enemies of Muslims. For this very reason they gave calls for Jihad against these countries in particular. Afghanistan has the misfortune of being in news for all the wrong reasons since the late 1970s.

It was in 1979 that Soviet troupes from the then USSR invaded Afghanistan and engineered a regime change. These forces remained in Afghanistan for the next 10 years, but not before resistance forces were armed with lethal weapons and trained manpower. Thereafter began a bloody era of revenge when the erstwhile President was hanged in broad daylight in the middle of the road. This bloody has not stopped since then. The areas bordering Pakistan are still full of sympathizers for the terror machine led by the likes of Osama Bin Laden.

Prior to 9/11, the world paid little attention towards these terror machines owing to a range of geopolitical issues and diplomatic concerns. But thereafter all eyes were focused towards the regimes which were considered to be unfriendly towards the European nations. Information was being compiled and analyzed from nations like Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Libya. This analysis led to the belief that Afghanistan is the hub of activities for producing the terror suspects while the regime led by President Saddam Hussain was considered having a friendly approach towards the terror suspects.

All these factors resulted into formation of a coalition led by US in war against terrorism and the hunting down of the remnants of al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan. Though US had forces had earlier bombed some selected targets in Afghanistan, but these bombs failed to find the intended target. This time US did not want to take chances and launched a full-fledged war against terror in Afghanistan. It began on October 7, 2001 when the coalition forces launched the aerial attacks, followed by ground forces advancements.

In fact many countries have been tackling this menace of terrorism for many years. This way there has been an ongoing war against terrorism. But the term 'The War on Terrorism' is the name given to the military and diplomatic campaign launched by the United States, with support from NATO and other allies. Stated goal of this campaign is to end international terrorism by preventing 'terrorist' groups from carrying out further attacks. Majority of these groups are Islamists like al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas.

Afghanistan is now free of Taliban government and at present led by President Hamid Karzai with active support from the coalition forces. But the cause of concern is that the main suspect