Hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives escaped into Pakistan, and bin Laden was never captured or killed. military personnel lost their lives to enemy fire. Ultimately, after several days of nonstop bombing, the remaining al Qaeda and Taliban fighters were dispersed and the operation ended successfully, even though eight U.S. Fixed-wing air power had been largely excluded from Anaconda planning, but it was summoned at the eleventh hour when the plan was in danger of failing. ground forces supported by SOF teams and friendly Afghans, who encountered unexpected enemy resistance as soon as they arrived. That initiative - Operation Anaconda - was led by conventional U.S. In pursuit of Osama bin Laden and fearing that the fighters might threaten the still-fragile interim government of Hamid Karzai, CENTCOM planned an initiative to capture or kill any enemy fighters who might be in the area. By December, many campaign goals had been achieved and combat moved to the high-mountain caves at Tora Bora, where dispersed al Qaeda and Taliban fighters had fled. The war began on October 7, 2001, with nighttime air strikes against preplanned targets such as Taliban airfields and headquarters facilities. ![]() Special Operations Forces (SOF), who would work alongside indigenous Afghan groups opposed to the Taliban and identify and validate targets for allied aircrews. The plan was to rely on air power and precision weapons, aided on the ground by U.S. The study was conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute. Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) assessed the planning and initial execution of the war, from October 2001 through March 2002. ![]() How did we do? A RAND Corporation study for U.S. In less than a month and from a standing start, the United States commenced combat operations in a landlocked country half the world away. Central Command (CENTCOM) against al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan and against the Taliban theocracy that provided them safe haven. The first round of this war was Operation Enduring Freedom, an air-dominated offensive conducted by U.S. The attacks of September 11, 2001, thrust the United States into a no-notice war against Osama bin Laden, his al Qaeda terrorist network, and transnational terrorism across the board. Such networked operations are now the cutting edge of an ongoing shift in American combat style. ![]() Global communications connectivity and the common operating picture that was made possible by linking the inputs of unmanned aerial vehicles and other sensors enabled a close partnership between airmen and U.S. Yet, al Qaeda’s infrastructure and the supporting Taliban regime in Afghanistan were destroyed. The United States conducted Operation Enduring Freedom from land bases and aircraft carriers positioned far away from the landlocked combat zone.
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