Ten years have passed after the United States was sunk in the Afghan quagmire.
Ten years have passed after the United States was sunk in the Afghan quagmire. Ten years ago the US invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of 'war on terror' and with the declared aim of toppling the Taliban regime and “establishing security” in the war-torn country.
Less than a month following the highly sophisticated September 11 attacks, the US-led military occupation of Afghanistan took place on October 7, 2001.
The war began days after Washington accused the Taliban regime of harboring leaders of the al-Qaeda group.
After a decade and the expenditure of billions of dollars in what has turned out to be America's longest war, Afghanistan remained poor and insecure while battling the steadily growing human sufferings, militancy as well as narcotics production and trade across the country.
On the eve of the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion, thousands of Afghans turned up to demand an immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan.
"The United States said it came to help the Afghan people and provide a good life to Afghan people, but their true purpose was to occupy our country," a protester said.
"It is 10 years since the invasion of Afghanistan and all it has left behind is the blood of the Afghan people. We want the US to leave our country," the protester added.
A recent UN report indicates that the number of security incidents in Afghanistan has increased 40 percent in the first eight months of 2011, compared with the same period in 2010.
There are nearly 140,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, with almost 100,000 from the United States.
The US plans to pull out 10,000 soldiers this year and 23,000 by September 2012 to advance a plan of handing over security to Afghan police and army, which Washington claims will be completed by the end of 2014.
However, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Thursday that transition of security to Afghan forces is different from departing from Afghanistan, insisting that foreign soldiers will continue to stay in the war-ravaged country well beyond 2014.
