Drugs, war and terrorism were the unholy trinity that brought the US-led
air campaign crashing down on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in
October 2001 in Operation Enduring Freedom, and this photographic
history is a graphic introduction to it.
The immediate aim was to eject the Taliban from power, and to capture or
kill the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his supporters whom the
Taliban were sheltering. The decade-long war that followed, first
against the Taliban regime, then against Taliban insurgents, is one of
the most controversial conflicts of recent times.
It has also seen the deployment of thousands of coalition troops and a
huge range of modern military equipment, and these are the main focus of
Anthony Tucker-Jones's account. He covers the entire course of the
conflict, from the initial air war, the battle for the White Mountains
and Tora Bora, the defeat of the Taliban, the escape of bin Laden and
the grim protracted security campaign that followed - an asymmetrical
war of guerrilla tactics and improvised explosive devices that is going
on today.