Under intense security and the cover of night, President Barack Obama slipped into Afghanistan on Tuesday. The goal of the trip is to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and sign off on a long-term agreement that would extend America's military presence in the country into the next decade.
For about seven hours, Obama is to be on the ground in Afghanistan, where the United States has been engaged in war in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks more than a decade ago
Obama's itinerary was cloaked in secrecy through the day Tuesday, as White House officials sought to keep news of the trip under wraps out of concern for his safety. Even after hints of the president's arrival broke on Twitter and local Afghan news outlets, White House and U.S. embassy officials repeatedly denied that the president was "in Kabul," and reportedly even asked some outlets to remove mention of it from their Twitter feeds.
Air Force One touched down late at night local time at Bagram Air
Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan.
Media traveling with Obama on the 13-hour flight had to agree to keep it secret until Obama had safely finished a helicopter flight to the nation's capital, Kabul, where Taliban still launch lethal attacks.
Obama is joining Afghan President Hamid Karzai to sign an agreement
that will broadly govern the U.S. role in Afghanistan after the American combat
mission stops at the end of 2014 - 13 years after it began. Huffington
Post
The War in Afghanistan is an ongoing coalition conflict which began
on October 7, 2001, as the U.S. military's Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) that
was launched, along with the British military, in response to the September 11,
2001 attacks on the U.S. edinburghstw.org.uk The main reason cited for the invasion in 2001 was in response to the
September 11 terrorist attacks in New York. The aim was to find Osama bin Laden
and put him on trial along with other al-Qaeda members. Another aim was to end
al-Qaeda as an entity and remove the Taliban in Afghanistan which harbored the
organization. patrick-hinton.suite101.com The U.S. named the Afghanistan based al-Qaeda as the sole attacker;
however this has been disputed by many analysts as well as a over a third of the
U.S. public, according to a 2006 poll. The U.S. played an instrumental role in the 1980s in arming and
training local Afghan fighters called the "Mujahideen" who were fighting Soviet
occupation. Many of the Mujahideen later became key figures of al-Qaeda and the
Taliban. Even after the Soviet invasion ended, the U.S. was one of only four
countries in the world which recognized the Taliban after it militarily took
over Afghanistan in 1996. rimanews.com The war was not authorized by the United Nations Security Council and
many experts called it illegal under international law.
globalresearch.ca The United States continues its military presence in Afghanistan even
though the stated goals of the war were to remove the Taliban from power and to
capture or kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. NY Times Osama bin Laden was allegedly shot and killed by U.S. Navy SEALs
inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011.
Washington Times
SM/KA
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