tun leader from Kandahar, was installed as the chairman of
Afghanistan's interim administration. Afghanistan had been liberated
from the rule of the Taliban.
engagement of the war was fought, in the mountainous Shah-i-Kot area south
of Gardez, against a large force of al Qaeda jihadists.The three-week battle was
substantially successful, and almost all remaining al Qaeda forces took refuge
in Pakistan's equally mountainous and lightly governed frontier provinces. As
of July 2004, Bin Ladin and Zawahiri are still believed to be at large.
of U.S. aircraft and a much larger infrastructure of intelligence and support
efforts, had combined with Afghan militias and a small number of other coali-
tion soldiers to destroy the Taliban regime and disrupt al Qaeda.They had killed
or captured about a quarter of the enemy's known leaders. Mohammed Atef,
al Qaeda's military commander and a principal figure in the 9/11 plot, had been
killed by a U.S. air strike.According to a senior CIA officer who helped devise
the overall strategy, the CIA provided intelligence, experience, cash, covert
action capabilities, and entrée to tribal allies. In turn, the U.S. military offered
combat expertise, firepower, logistics, and communications.
rorism became a different kind of struggle.