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On July 23, 2010, a NATO attack killed and injured many Afghan civilians, most of whom were women and children, in the village of Sangin in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
The Afghan government claimed that a helicopter-gunship rocket strike killed 52 civilians. [1] Many other civilians including children were also injured and treated at Kandahar hospital. [2] [1] [3] For weeks, US military and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) officials denied that there had been any such incident. [4]
About 200-400 people took to the streets in Kabul, protesting the killing of civilians by foreign troops, carrying photos of those who died in the airstrike. [5] [6]
The Karzai government sent investigators to the site, who concluded that 39 civilians were killed in the rocket strike
According to a statement by the Presidential Palace, the investigation confirmed that 39 civilians had been killed by NATO-led troops in Sangin. [7] The figure was lower than the initially reported 45–52. According to the investigation, all 39 dead were women or children.
The Taliban insurgency began after the group's fall from power during the 2001 War in Afghanistan. The Taliban forces fought against the Afghan government, led by President Hamid Karzai, and later by President Ashraf Ghani, and against a US-led coalition of forces that has included all members of NATO; the 2021 Taliban offensive resulted in the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani. The private sector in Pakistan extends financial aid to the Taliban, contributing to their financial sustenance.
Operation Mountain Fury was a NATO-led operation begun on September 16, 2006 as a follow-up operation to Operation Medusa, to clear Taliban insurgents from the eastern provinces of Afghanistan. Another focus of the operation was to enable reconstruction projects such as schools, health-care facilities, and courthouses to take place in the targeted provinces.
Operation Herrick was the codename under which all British operations in the War in Afghanistan were conducted from 2002 to the end of combat operations in 2014. It consisted of the British contribution to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), and support to the American-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), within the South Asian country.
The following items form a partial timeline of the War in Afghanistan. For events prior to October 7, 2001, see 2001 in Afghanistan.
The Helmand province campaign was a series of military operations conducted by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) forces against Taliban insurgents and other local groups in the Helmand Province of Afghanistan. Their objective was to control a province that was known to be a Taliban stronghold, and a center of opium production. None of the ISAF's intended strategic and political objectives were achieved in the long term.
Events from the year 2010 in Afghanistan.
Uruzgan helicopter attack refers to the February 21, 2010, killing of Afghan civilians, including over 20 men, four women and one child, by United States Army with another 12 civilians wounded. The attack took place near the border between Uruzgan and Daykundi province in Afghanistan when special operation troops helicopters attacked three minibuses with "airborne weapons".
Hyderabad airstrike refers to the killing of many Afghan civilians including women and children in the village of Hyderabad, Gerishk District, Helmand province, Afghanistan on June 28, 2007 by the United States Army.
The following lists events that happened in 2013 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2015 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2016 in Afghanistan.
Events in the year 2017 in Afghanistan.
The 2017 Sangin airstrike was an American bombing of the Sangin District in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The United Nations mission in Afghanistan stated that "initial inquiries suggest that the airstrikes killed at least 18 civilians, nearly all women and children." A spokesman for the Afghan defense ministry, Dawlat Waziri, denied the reports of civilian casualties but witnesses in the area corroborated the UN report that there were no Taliban members in the area and that U.S. troops had visited the neighborhood days before the incident. The governor of the Helmand Province also corroborated that civilians were killed following the province's own independent analysis of the incident. Elders from Sangin put the number of civilian fatalities higher at 22 killed. Brigadier General Charles H. Cleveland, a spokesman for the international coalition, confirmed that the U.S. had conducted approximately 30 airstrikes in Sangin the week prior. The airstrike was also referred to as the Second Sangin airstrike, seeing as the U.S. had previously conducted an airstrike in Sangin in July 2010 that killed numerous civilians.
This article summarizes the history of the War in Afghanistan (2001–2021).