Historical calendar/ What happened on October 7

2023-10-07 11:43:00, Blog CNA

2001 - The United States launches the invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the regime of the Taliban, allies of al-Qaeda

A US-led coalition launches attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, through an intensive bombing campaign by US and British forces.

Logistical support was provided by other countries, including France, Germany, Australia and Canada, and later by anti-Taliban rebels of the Northern Alliance.

Historical calendar/ What happened on October 7

Called "Operation Enduring Freedom", the invasion of Afghanistan aimed to destroy the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, which had its main bases in this country but also the extremist fundamentalist Taliban government that was ruling the country in a way brutal since 1996.

Historical calendar/ What happened on October 7

The Taliban, who had imposed their extremist version of Islam across the country, committed countless human rights abuses against its own people, particularly women, girls and the ethnic Hazara community.

Historical calendar/ What happened on October 7

Weeks before the invasion, both the United States and the UN Security Council had demanded that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden for prosecution.

But the Taliban offered to try bin Laden in an Islamic court, so the US waited no longer and launched the invasion through an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaeda military bases in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other coalition aircraft delivered humanitarian aid to Afghan civilians.

On November 12, Taliban officials and their forces withdrew from the capital of Kabul. In early December, Kandahar, the last stronghold of the Taliban, fell and their leader Mullah Muhammad Omar went into hiding. Al-Qaeda fighters holed up in the mountainous Tora Bora region, where they clashed with Afghan anti-Taliban forces backed by US Special Forces troops.

Historical calendar/ What happened on October 7

A few years later, on August 15, 2021, the US withdrew the last troops from this country and Kabul again fell into the hands of the Taliban forces.

During this conflict, more than 3,500 US coalition soldiers were killed, and more than 20,000 were wounded. Meanwhile, 69,000 Afghan forces, 51,000 civilians and 51,000 al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters were killed.

Other important events:

1870 - French Minister of the Interior, Leon Gambetta, escapes Paris besieged by the Prussians in a hot air balloon, going to the seat of the French Provisional Government in Tours.

1849 - Prominent American writer Edgar Allan Po dies. He was found 4 days earlier on the streets of Baltimore in a very serious state of health. The exact cause of his death is still unknown today.

1952 - Vladimir Putin, the current president of Russia, was born in Leningrad, today Saint Petersburg. He became known on the national and international stage in 1999, when he was elected prime minister by then president Boris Yeltsin, and a year later he became president.

1985 - Four Palestinian terrorists hijack the Italian ship "Achille Lauro", as soon as the latter left the port of Alexandria in Egypt. They demanded that Israel release their fellow prisoners, and allow them access to a Syrian port. After rejecting the request, the terrorists lost their way and killed one of the hostages. They were later caught and sentenced to prison.

1940 - German troops enter Romania. Hitler decided to invade Romania as part of his strategy of creating an uninterrupted eastern front to threaten the Soviet Union.

1944 - A prisoner uprising breaks out in the Nazi concentration camp at Birkenau.

1976 - Hua Guofeng, premier of the People's Republic of China, replaces the late Mao Zedong as chairman of the Communist Party of China./ Adapted from CNA