Afghanistan, Again 877been driven from power; most of its leaders had
been killed or captured or they had fled to
Pakistan. Bush shifted his attention to driving
Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq; a United
Nations commission was given the task of building
a new Afghan government.
In late 2001, the commission summoned Afghan
leaders who eventually chose Hamid Karzai as interim
leader of the nation. Karzai had helped channel
American aid to the Taliban when it was fighting the
Soviet Union; he later became a staunch opponent of
the Taliban and worked with Americans to forge a
coalition in opposition to it. As interim leader, Karzai
relied on United Nations troops—one-half of them
provided by the United States—to enforce the new
government’s authority.
For a time it appeared that a new Afghanistan was
emerging. Hundreds of schools, hospitals, and roads
were built; women were granted new rights. In 2004
Karzai defeated twenty-two opponents to become the
first democratically elected president of the Islamic
Republic of Afghanistan.
But much of the progress was illusory. Karzai’s
government was weak and riddled with corruption.
In the southern sections of Afghanistan, Islamic
radicals resurfaced and the former Taliban slipped
back into the country, calling on Muslims to fight
“infidel” troops. In the north, tribal leaders jock-
eyed to expand their power. Nearly everywhere,
criminal militias vied for control of the lucrative
opium trade.
By late 2006 the Taliban initiated a concerted
effort to topple Karzai’s government. It named its
own “shadow” governors as rulers of Afghanistan’s
provinces. Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group behind
9/11, also mounted its own attacks, as did rebel war-An Army helicopter arrives to evaluate soldiers wounded after their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device (IED) in the Tangi Valley
in Afghanistan.