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Operation Recovery's Story
After 20 years, America’s war in Afghanistan officially ended on August 31, 2021. Countless American citizens and Afghan allies were tragically left behind, facing grave danger. Veterans quickly banded together on an unprecedented scale to honor our nation’s promises of freedom and safe resettlement. Over the course of the first few weeks, Operation Recovery volunteers shepherded men, women, and children to safety on a 21st century underground railroad. Instead of lamp signals, this journey relied on mobile phones. Families were guided into Kabul’s airport (HKIA) — later, to safehousing where they could shelter. Operation Recovery facilitated an additional 9 private charter flights. Our mission is ongoing; natural disasters, conflict, and humanitarian crisis threaten the well-being of American citizens and American allies around the world .
Timeline of Events in Afghanistan Since Taliban Takeover
Instability in Afghanistan
By the Center for Preventive Action
Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, more than 120,000 Afghans were airlifted and relocated around the world, with about 76,000 arriving in the United States as of August 2022. Those remaining in the country under Taliban rule have watched the regression and reversion of any gains in liberal and democratic rights and freedoms over the last twenty years. Girls are once again barred from secondary schools. Women are required to have a male-relative companion when traveling significant distances and to cover their faces in public. Music has been banned and flogging, amputations, and mass executions have been reintroduced. According to a New York Times investigation, the Taliban has killed or forcibly disappeared nearly five hundred former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces in just its first six months in power. Afghans also remain at a heightened risk of terrorist attacks, such as the August 2022 bombing of a mosque and September 2022 bombing of the Russian Embassy, both in Kabul, allegedly perpetrated by the Islamic State.
Afghans are also suffering from cascading and compounding humanitarian crises and face the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations. In January 2022, the United Nations launched the largest single-country aid appeal in its history to finance humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan. By March 2022, 95 percent of Afghan households did not have enough to eat, and more than 3.5 million children were in need of nutrition treatment support. By August 2022, six million people were “on the brink of famine.” Climate change, which has increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters and extreme weather, has elevated the population’s exposure to food shortages, with searing heatwaves and flash flooding destroying crops and arable land. Afghans have also seen food prices soar as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has also been exacerbated by an economy on the verge of collapse and international isolation. Sanctions and the termination of significant development aid have crippled the Afghan economy. The revocation of the country’s central bank’s credentials halted all basic banking transactions and drastically restricted critical cash flow relied on by Afghan families for daily market activities. Furthermore, skyrocketing inflation has meant an over 50 percent increase in the price of goods since July 2021. Obtaining external assistance to contend with domestic economic havoc is complicated by the West’s reticence to work with the Taliban government over concerns that doing so would bolster the regime’s legitimacy. Despite the humanitarian exceptions issued by the United Nations, the United States, and other countries that have imposed sanctions on Afghanistan since the Taliban usurped power, the country remains starved for assistance. Additionally, no foreign government has to date formally recognized the Taliban and, as of December 2021, the UN Credentials Committee has deferred any formal decision on the Taliban’s UN representation of Afghanistan.
In May 2022, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released an interim assessment [PDF] of the United States’ involvement in and withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report cited the decision “to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan” under the Doha Agreement (signed during the Donald J. Trump administration and confirmed by President Biden in April 2021) as the “single most important near-term factor in the ANDSF’s collapse.” Many Afghans viewed the agreement as “an act of bad faith” that signaled the U.S. government’s intention to hand over the country to the Taliban while rushing to evacuate. The report also detailed nine factors explaining why the ANDSF was so poorly prepared to maintain security after the U.S. withdrawal after two decades of support “and nearly $90 billion in U.S. security assistance,” including the creation of U.S. “long-term dependencies” and “Afghan corruption.”
On August 1, 2022, President Biden announced the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and Osama bin Laden’s successor as the leader of al-Qaeda. A day prior, U.S. forces fired two Hellfire missiles on a house in downtown Kabul where U.S. intelligence indicated Zawahiri was residing as a guest of the Taliban. The Biden administration condemned the Taliban’s harboring of Zawahiri on Afghan soil as a violation of the 2020 Doha Agreement.
The Taliban takeover sparks the freezing of Afghanistan’s $8 billion in assets held abroad, most in the U.S. Also halted are billions in development and other aid that paid most of the government’s budget. Almost overnight, the already tenuous economy collapses. Many Afghans lose their salaries or jobs as prices spiral. Over the next months, millions will become unable to afford food; many medical facilities will shut down, unable to afford supplies or pay staff.
Schools reopen around Afghanistan. Girls up through the sixth grade are allowed to return to classes, as are women in some private universities. Above sixth grade, however, girls are not allowed back, with a few local exceptions.
The Taliban announce the formation of an interim government, made up entirely of Taliban figures and men, despite international pressure for greater diversity. The Taliban hint it could be widened later to include other factions, but it has remained largely the same since.
Aid flights resume into Kabul as the U.N. revs up what will become a massive aid effort to keep Afghans alive in an accelerating humanitarian disaster. In less than a month since the Taliban takeover, the number of families reporting insufficient food consumption leaps 13 percentage points to 93% of the population, according to U.N. figures. World Food Program chief David Beasley warns that 14 million face acute food insecurity, “marching to the brink of starvation, they don’t know where their next meal is.”
U.S. President Joe Biden issues an executive order holding half of the $7 billion in Afghan assets frozen into the United States for court cases involving victims of the 9/11 attacks. He orders the other $3.5 billion to be used for the benefit of Afghanistan; since then U.S. officials have been holding talks with the Taliban on how to use that money.
On the day high schools are opening, the Taliban suddenly reverse a promise to allow girls above the sixth grade to attend schools. Girls who showed up for the first day of classes are told to go home. The reversal suggests hardliners among the Taliban leadership moved to prevent a return of older girls to school.
The number of Afghans living below the poverty line is rapidly approaching 97% of the population, the head of the United Nations Development Program Achim Steiner warns. In 2020, just under half of Afghanistan’s population lived in poverty.
The Taliban Virtue and Vice Ministry issues orders that all women in public must wear all-encompassing robes and cover their face except for their eyes. It advises them to stay home unless they have important work outside the house.
New U.N. report shows huge infusion of aid is just barely keeping numbers of hungry from growing further, with the number of people facing acute food insecurity at nearly 20 million. However, it warns that continued bad harvest and drought, inflation fueled in part by Ukraine conflict and lack of funding for U.N. aid threatens to increase the crisis.
A powerful earthquake hits a remote region of eastern Afghanistan, killing more than 1,100 people. The Taliban struggle with rescue efforts, underscoring a lack of resources and a reliance on aid groups.
Amnesty International issues a report saying Taliban policies are “suffocating” women at every level of their lives, pointing to the restrictions on schooling and work, increased child marriage and repression of women activists.
The U.S. kills al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike on a safehouse in Kabul where he has been staying for months. U.S. officials accuse the Taliban of sheltering him in violation of the Doha Agreement.
Instability in Afghanistan
By the Center for Preventive Action
Following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, more than 120,000 Afghans were airlifted and relocated around the world, with about 76,000 arriving in the United States as of August 2022. Those remaining in the country under Taliban rule have watched the regression and reversion of any gains in liberal and democratic rights and freedoms over the last twenty years. Girls are once again barred from secondary schools. Women are required to have a male-relative companion when traveling significant distances and to cover their faces in public. Music has been banned and flogging, amputations, and mass executions have been reintroduced. According to a New York Times investigation, the Taliban has killed or forcibly disappeared nearly five hundred former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces in just its first six months in power. Afghans also remain at a heightened risk of terrorist attacks, such as the August 2022 bombing of a mosque and September 2022 bombing of the Russian Embassy, both in Kabul, allegedly perpetrated by the Islamic State.
Afghans are also suffering from cascading and compounding humanitarian crises and face the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations. In January 2022, the United Nations launched the largest single-country aid appeal in its history to finance humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan. By March 2022, 95 percent of Afghan households did not have enough to eat, and more than 3.5 million children were in need of nutrition treatment support. By August 2022, six million people were “on the brink of famine.” Climate change, which has increased the frequency and intensity of natural disasters and extreme weather, has elevated the population’s exposure to food shortages, with searing heatwaves and flash flooding destroying crops and arable land. Afghans have also seen food prices soar as a result of the Russia-Ukraine war.
The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has also been exacerbated by an economy on the verge of collapse and international isolation. Sanctions and the termination of significant development aid have crippled the Afghan economy. The revocation of the country’s central bank’s credentials halted all basic banking transactions and drastically restricted critical cash flow relied on by Afghan families for daily market activities. Furthermore, skyrocketing inflation has meant an over 50 percent increase in the price of goods since July 2021. Obtaining external assistance to contend with domestic economic havoc is complicated by the West’s reticence to work with the Taliban government over concerns that doing so would bolster the regime’s legitimacy. Despite the humanitarian exceptions issued by the United Nations, the United States, and other countries that have imposed sanctions on Afghanistan since the Taliban usurped power, the country remains starved for assistance. Additionally, no foreign government has to date formally recognized the Taliban and, as of December 2021, the UN Credentials Committee has deferred any formal decision on the Taliban’s UN representation of Afghanistan.
In May 2022, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released an interim assessment [PDF] of the United States’ involvement in and withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report cited the decision “to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan” under the Doha Agreement (signed during the Donald J. Trump administration and confirmed by President Biden in April 2021) as the “single most important near-term factor in the ANDSF’s collapse.” Many Afghans viewed the agreement as “an act of bad faith” that signaled the U.S. government’s intention to hand over the country to the Taliban while rushing to evacuate. The report also detailed nine factors explaining why the ANDSF was so poorly prepared to maintain security after the U.S. withdrawal after two decades of support “and nearly $90 billion in U.S. security assistance,” including the creation of U.S. “long-term dependencies” and “Afghan corruption.”
On August 1, 2022, President Biden announced the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks and Osama bin Laden’s successor as the leader of al-Qaeda. A day prior, U.S. forces fired two Hellfire missiles on a house in downtown Kabul where U.S. intelligence indicated Zawahiri was residing as a guest of the Taliban. The Biden administration condemned the Taliban’s harboring of Zawahiri on Afghan soil as a violation of the 2020 Doha Agreement.