Horror at the Dawn of the Millenium: An Alternate War on Terror TL

Invasion of Afganistan

After the September 8th meeting, planning began for a potential invasion of Afghanistan involving the various countries that would be part of the Coalition. It was quickly decided that the invasion forces would be under UN command and commanded by a general from the Maldives. It was hoped by many including President Gore that the plans would not be needed. That hope was dashed on October 4th when the Taliban informed the international community that members of Al-Qaeda would not be surrendered. Operation Lasting Liberty began the next day and initiated the then latest phase of the long running Afghan Civil War. Taliban air defenses and training camps were among the first targets of the Coalition.

However these targets were rapidly exhausted due to the sheer number of airstrikes. As Coalition air power pounded Taliban targets across the country, ground operations made rapid gains against the Taliban.
In the north Northern Alliance forces with the support of thousands of soldiers from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia pushed south with the air forces of CSTO providing close air support. In the west Iranians troops rapidly advanced across the border. Along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Pakistan’s military along with forces from various Coalition countries engaged the forces of the Taliban and their allies.

Coalition aircraft would for the first 72 hours of Operation Lasting Liberty pound the Tora Bora cave complex of the White Mountains due to intelligence indicating Osama Bin Laden being present. On the fourth day Coalition special forces entered the cave complex. When they left all members of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda that had been in the cave complex were dead. Including Osama Bin Laden. Cities and villages rapidly began to fall to the Northern Alliance forces and the Coalition. On October 20th, after a two day battle the city of Mazar-i-Sharif fell. Eight days later Kunduz, the last major Taliban presence in the north fell. On October 30th Kandahar fell after several weeks of combat. Though even before these cities fell, the Taliban was in decline. Nine days after Operation Lasting Liberty began the Taliban abandoned Kabul.

This was viewed as a rather controversial move by the rank and file of the Taliban. The Taliban leadership however viewed this as a necessary move. They had no delusions that Kabul wouldn’t fall. It was only a matter of time. Rather than have men and resources wasted defending a doomed city they planned to fight a guerilla war against the Coalition. To bleed this latest foreign invasion until they quit like the Soviets before them. This strategy had a number of flaws. First the Taliban unlike the Afghan rebels of the 80’s, they had very few allies and supporters due to the actions of Al Qaeda. So no massive flow of arms and ammunition.

Or shelter provided by nearby countries. Second the Taliban’s actions over the last five years had alienated much of Afghanistan's population. As a result the Taliban would struggle to fill their depleted manpower. Third Coalition troop numbers were far greater than what the Soviets deployed to Afghanistan and as result could secure control of the country to a degree the Soviets were not able to.


However the leaders of the Taliban would not live to see this strategy put into action. Most of them would be killed in either firefights with Coalition ground forces or by airstrikes.
Mohammed Omar Mujahid along with several Taliban fighters were killed by the latter on October 18th. By early 2001 the Taliban were finished as a group. Though remnants of the Taliban would continue the fight in Afghanistan and expand it to other countries.

-The War on Terror
 
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Well that unity is not going to last.

Probably...

...lol though at the idea of the UN evolving to become more...well...government-like, New World Order and all that, and terrorists fighting not because of religion but because of the neo-imperialist/neo-colonialist united world government :D
 
Yes. Updates will resume in January.

Huzzah my creation lives on!

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In the Shadow of 9/7 Part 1

Happy Theev?:p
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By the end of October, the Northern Alliance along with it’s allies found themselves in control of most country with the Taliban scattered and without direction. With the Taliban no longer in power came a far more difficult prospect. Rebuilding Afghanistan after two plus decades of ruinous civil war. In early November, the UN hosted a conference in Bonn,Germany to put together a temporary government that would lead the country until elections could be held. It had been hoped to have the conference in Afghanistan but a number of assassinations by Taliban loyalists nixed the idea.
The conference got off on a bad start. Some of the Afghan leaders accused some of the Shia leaders of being puppets of Iran and wishing to break off and form their own nation. These accusation were mainly due to the fact that Iran had begun supplying and training militias in Hazarajat. As well the setting up a government for the region only further fueled paranoia. The UN got the leaders to move past the incident however it would be issue that would continue to trouble Afghanistan.

When the conference ended on November 15th, among-st a number of things agreed a few stand out. The first was that while the presence foreign troops would continue, they would begin an immediate draw-down of troops. The ever shrinking number of UN troops would help organize and train an Afghan National Army. As well two commissions were agreed upon. One for the judicial branch and one for drafting a new constitution for Afghanistan. As well a Afghan Interim Administration with Hamid Karzai as its chairman would lead the country for six months until a loya jirga can be held in Afghanistan.

On October 30th the fall of Kandahar resulted in celebrations in the United States and in countries around the world. It was believed at the time the battle was the final battle of Afghanistan long running civil war and the beginning of a new era for pakistan. The passage of time would show the first to not to be true and the second to be correct but not in a positive way. Kandahar fall only a few days before the election served further to boost President Gore’s popularity with the American people. Republicans had since September of that year had accepted the Democrats would win the Presidency and after victory in Afghanistan they would make gains in the Congress. And as expected Gore wins the election by a landslide and the Democrats strengthening their hold on the Senate and gaining a very small majority in the House. Governor Bush in his concession speech called for all Americans to stand together and not to let race, creed or religion to divide them.

Two days later President Gore addressed the nation concerning the United States role in Afghanistan. The United States would remain in Afghanistan until December of the next year. In the meantime US forces would train Afghanistan new military and reconstruction projects would be supported.

When it was revealed on September 13th of Al-Qaeda being most likely responsible for the 9/7 attacks, Pakistan’s leadership was not surprised by the announcement. Osama Bin Laden had declared war against the United States over four years ago. However they were surprised by the casualties the group had managed to inflict along with collateral damage including Pervez Musharraf. Pakistan new leadership moved quickly to purge the government along with ISI and the military of any high ranking officials whose continued employment could prove troublesome for the government. The more famous of those purged included Mahmud Ahmed, at the time Deputy Director of ISI and it would be later learned that he had ordered money be wired to one of the hijackers. As well Deputy Chief of Staff Muzaffar Usmani decided to retire after a ‘friendly chat’ with General Kayani. There were considerations given to sacking Muhammad Aziz Khan, considered by many to be something of a loose canon due to his role in the Kashmir War. However despite being considered a possible liability his status as a war hero and his popularity with fundamentalists made his firing at the time, a bridge too far for Pakistan’s triumvirate rulers.

As well the government hoped to appease an enraged and grieving superpower by passing along intelligence concerning the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Pakistan as well provided the second largest number of troops for the coalition invasion. However the recent actions and policies of Pakistan’s did not reap the expected benefits. Anti-war protests by some of Pakistan’s Pashtun population which had begun in late September had grown in size and popularity as October progressed and casualties inflicted on the Taliban filtered back to Pakistan. In November pro-democracy protests like in a number of other countries across the world began after rumors spread that there would be no elections next year despite promises to hold them.The support for the democracy protests forced the triumvirate to announce that elections would be held next year. However they would continue to hold power until the current instability had ended.

Protests were as well organized by Baloch nationalists calling for the end of the Pakistani’s state oppressive policies against the Baloch people. Pakistan’s response was to brutally suppress these demonstrations and sparked the current phase of the Balochistan conflict. The Balochistan Liberation Army along with other groups would launch a number of attacks on the Pakistani state and the army throughout the remainder of the year. This was not the only conflict the country found itself fighting, not counting the War in Afghanistan. In North Waziristan, anger that been building due to the presence of Pakistani troops and Pakistan’s fighting the Taliban erupted into rebellion on December 4th. Though the facts are murky, this is what is known. In the early hours of December 3rd allegedly drunk Pakistani soldiers kidnapped a local girl and sexually assaulted her for several hours. By accident some of her family and friends who had been searching for stumbled upon. To the surprise of no one, the search party attacked the group of soldiers and in the resulting fight several of both groups were killed. As well as the girl.

Word rapidly spread of the incident and attacks began on Pakistan Army patrols. Civilians accidentally and sometimes not, killed by the army attempting to restore order and put down this rebellion further enraged the people of North Waziristan and that anger would spread.

India like many countries experienced riots after Al Gore’s speech on the 13th. Hindu anger against Al-Qaeda quickly resulted in their anger being directed against Pakistani’s in the country and soon enough Indian Muslims being targeted. Though not as bad as the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, still over a thousand were killed in the riots that raged throughout September. Lal Krishna Advani, India’s new Prime Minister early in riots called upon his fellow citizens to stand united against bigotry and fear and to not let sectarianism destroy their country. It was a good speech, but had little effect. Early October to mid December saw several attack by Kashmiri militants on both civilian and military targets. Retaliatory attacks by militant Hindus began to unfortunately grow more common as time passed. Tensions rose in India and with it’s neighbor. Those tensions would boil over on December 18th. In three well coordinated attacks by sixteen members of Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Sansad Bhavan in New Delhi was attacked and a suicide bombing of the Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly building. The final target being the famous Red Fort. The casualties of the attacks were fourteen MP’s killed along with 19 soldiers and six police officers. As well twenty three members of the Jammu and Kashmir legislators were killed.

Anti Muslim riots quickly broke out across the country as India reinforced its border and accused its neighbor of being behind the terror attacks. Pakistan denied the accusation and began to reinforce the border with a limited number of troops due to the Pakistani military being spread thin. Both sides readied their nuclear arsenal’s and prepared for war. The international community began a frantic effort of to prevent an escalation into nuclear war. The standoff between the two escalated on December 20th when fighting broke out along the Line of Control. The world’s horror soon turned into outrage when the fighting spread to Afghanistan and Afghan civilians unfortunately got caught in the crossfire. Hamid Karzai demanded the two nations withdraw from his country immediately and pay reparation. The two feuding nations accused the other of being responsible for the deaths of Afghan civilians. After five days an exasperated United States along with it’s fellow UNSC members on Christmas Day announced in a joint statement that if the fighting did not immediately stop, economic sanctions would be slapped on both countries. Thankfully the warning worked and both nation’s military’s stood down.

The five days of fighting however would hurt the UN mission in Afghanistan. All troops from Pakistan and India in Afghanistan withdrew by early January leaving an ever rapidly shrinking number of troops responsible for training a new Afghan army and various other responsibilities. And to be expected Afghan views of foreign troops took a hit. Another blow to the mission’s success was the decreased number of Pakistani troops along the Afghan-Pakistani border due to needing to reinforce the border with India and to put down insurgents in Balochistan and Kashmir. The latter being done reluctantly at the insistence of the United States. The shifting of troops would prove critical in allowing groups like the Haqqani network to rebuild itself in the FATA.

On January 1st, New Year celebrations and hope for 2001 to be a better year are marred by the bombing of India’s embassy in Jakarta. Responsibility for the bombing would be claimed by rogue members of GAM along with Jemaah Islamiah and one of Al-Qaeda's Indonesia cells. Jakarta quickly responded by a launching new security crackdown in Aceh and promising the crushing of the Free Aceh Movement. This would be very unpopular in not only Aceh but throughout much of Indonesia.
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The next update will cover events in Russia, Israel, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, Turkey, Central Asia, some of North Africa and cover how events in Pakistan and India along with Indonesia are developing. Also how the global economy is doing and legislation concerning terrorism and how to deal with it. Oh and Argentina.
 
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Great update. I just have a question. What happened to General Massoud of the N. Alliance. Is he alive, or did the Al-Qaeda off him in this ATL.
 
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