A little less than a month after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center in New York, a US-led coalition on Oct. 7 began striking back. The target was Afghanistan, which the US accused of harboring terrorists, in particular al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.
But for more than a month the onslaught seemed to have little effect, and a growing number of reports of Afghan civilian casualties was muting the US propaganda war.
But on Nov. 9, the Northern Alliance said it had captured the strategically important northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Two days later, the Taliban surrendered the western city of Herat, and the alliance moved in on the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The Taliban promptly withdrew from Kabul, taking with them eight foreign aid workers who who subsequently escaped and were evacuated by US special forces.
Despite pleas from the US and key coalition member Pakistan, which feared a repeat of the lawlessness that accompanied the last round of Northern Alliance rule in the capital, anti-Taliban forces moved into Kabul.
But the stunning progress of the previous week came to an end as the Taliban, including many foreign fighters, dug in for a final fight in the nothern city of Kunduz and the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south, base of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
The negotiated surrender of Kunduz overshadowed reports seeping out of Mazar-i-Sharif, where captured Taliban fighters staged a prison rebellion that left hundreds of them, and a CIA operative, dead.
John Walker, an American fighting with the Taliban, survived the uprising and was whisked away by the US for questioning.
With the help of 1,200 US Marines, anti-Taliban forces took Kandahar on Dec. 7. The war succeeded in defeating the Taliban. But even as a new multi-ethnic interim government was being sworn in, US planes struck Tora Bora as the hunt for bin Laden and Omar continued.
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