Weeks after the September 11 attacks, US and UK aircraft and cruise missiles struck Taliban air defenses, airfields, and al-Qaeda training camps across Afghanistan, marking the start of Operation Enduring Freedom. President George W. Bush announced the campaign from the White House, framing it as the beginning of a broader war on terrorism that would reshape US foreign policy for two decades.
The strikes came 26 days after al-Qaeda operatives flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. The Taliban government, which had sheltered Osama bin Laden and refused US demands to hand him over, watched as B-1 and B-52 bombers, F-14s from carriers in the Arabian Sea, and cruise missiles from US and British ships pounded targets in Kabul, Kandahar, and Jalalabad within the opening hours.
President Bush addressed the nation from the White House Treaty Room that afternoon, stating flatly that 'we did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it.' Special operations forces and CIA teams soon followed, linking up with the Northern Alliance to begin the ground campaign that would topple the Taliban regime in Kabul by mid-November.
What began as a narrowly framed mission to dismantle al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban stretched into a 20-year war, the longest in American history, ending only with the chaotic US withdrawal and Taliban return to power in August 2021—a bookend that gave this October day a bitter historical symmetry.