Afghanistan marked 10 years since the start of the US-led war against the Taliban yesterday amid heightened security and questions over what the next decade will hold.

Security was stepped up in the capital Kabul after a string of major attacks including the assassination of peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani, which has thrown government strategy for talking peace with the Taliban into turmoil.

On the frontlines, was business as usual for the 140,000 international troops in Afghanistan, of whom 100,000 are from the US, as they continue the fight against a brutal, Taliban-led insurgency.

For many Afghans, the anniversary will be a time for reflection on what the war has meant for their country and how the withdrawal of all foreign combat troops by the end of 2014 will affect them in future.

“I spent a year in the city of Kabul during the Taliban regime and they made life difficult as they banned everything. We were forced to flee the country and live in Pakistan,” said Abdul Saboor, a 30-year-old cook in Kabul.

“I was very pleased when finally the dark era of the Taliban ended in (our) country.”

But Kabul street vendor Khan Agha, 30, highlighted discontent over civilian casualties and called for foreign troops to leave,

“Since the Americans and their allies came to Afghanistan, our security has deteriorated and they have also been involved in the killings of innocent Afghan civilians,” he said.

Around 200 Afghans called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and shouted anti-American slogans at a protest in Kabul on Thursday ahead of the anniversary. They shouted “Death to America and its Afghan puppets” and torched an American flag at the end of their peaceful march through the city centre, an AFP reporter at the scene said.

The war was launched to oust the Taliban for harbouring Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda which was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, and destroy Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

On October 7, 2001, just under a month after September 11, American planes dropped dozens of cruise missiles and laser-guided bombs on strategic targets in Kabul and other Afghan cities.

That was followed by a ground campaign which defeated the Taliban within weeks.

Insurgents lay dormant in Afghan and Pakistani hideouts for the next few years, severely depleted by the invasion, and US attention turned to the war in Iraq.

But violence flared back up again around 2007 and 2008, prompting a surge in the number of troops sent to fight the Taliban – the US alone sent 50,000 more.

Key dates

September 11, 2001: Al-Qaeda hijackers fly passenger planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people. Top Al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are known to have safe havens in Afghanistan, which is ruled by the Taliban.

October 7, 2001: A US-led military campaign begins with air strikes against Afghanistan, followed by an invasion, to hunt down bin Laden and topple the Taliban.

December 2001: The Taliban regime is forced from power, and Hamid Karzai is appointed to head a new government. An International Security Assistance Force, mandated by the United Nations, begins to deploy.

January 2002: The US begins taking suspects captured in Afghanistan to its naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba. The policy quickly becomes a major human rights scandal.

March 2003: The US takes on a second front by leading a massive invasion of Iraq. This reduces the resources that the US and its main allies can devote to Afghanistan.

August 11, 2003: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation engages in its first-ever mission outside its traditional zone of Europe by formally taking charge of the ISAF force.

October 9, 2004: Afghan­istan’s first presidential election takes place with little bloodshed. Karzai is proclaimed the winner.

February 2007: The reach of Taliban guerilla activity is brought home when guerillas attack a US base as vice president Dick Cheney visits, killing 24 people. US President George W. Bush vows to further boost his country’s forces.

November 2008: The Democrat candidate Barack Obama is elected to the US presidency, vowing to end the war in Iraq and focus on Afghanistan.

December 1, 2009: Mr Obama orders a 30,000-troop “surge” into Afghanistan but says a withdrawal will begin in July 2011. The number of Nato-led forces rises to a peak of 150,000 in the summer of 2010.

November 20, 2010: Nato leaders endorse a plan to start handing security responsibilities to Afghan forces, with the aim of ceding full control by the end of 2014.

March 22, 2011: Western military leaders start handing over authority to local Afghan forces, a process due to be completed by 2014.

May 2: Osama bin Laden is killed by US special forces in a raid on a house he has been hiding in near Pakistan capital Islamabad. The killing prompts some critics of the war to say that with bin Laden dead, it has lost its purpose.

June 22: Mr Obama announces the departure of 33,000 US troops by the middle of 2012.

September 20: Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former president and would-be peacemaker, becomes the highest-ranking Afghan to be killed in an insurgent attack since the start of the conflict.

September 22: The US military’s top officer accuses Pakistan of “exporting” violent extremism to Afghanistan, in a scathing and unprecedented public condemnation.

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