On 11 September 2001, Islamic terrorists hijacked four airliners, crashing them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon and near the White House, killing nearly 3,000 people. Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network quickly claimed responsibility for the outrage. The aftermath still reverberates around the world today. By October, the US military was carrying out air strikes against al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, and US ground forces were deployed against bin Laden's protectors, the incumbent Taliban regime. By June 2002 the Taliban had been ousted and a US-friendly government established in the capital, Kabul. But the campaign didn't end there, as NATO forces became bogged down in an attritional war for the next two decades. Afghanistan provides a photographic exploration of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, from the first deployment of Special Forces in October 2001 to the final withdrawal of the US military in August 2021. In between, the book offers a compact overview of the operations fought by the US and NATO forces against the Taliban/al-Qaeda insurgency, including the bombing of the Tora Bora cave complex, Operation Anaconda, President Obama's deployment surge, the Navy SEALs' assassination of bin Laden in neighbouring Pakistan, the development of a local Afghan army, police force and government, and the swift collapse of the Afghan administration amidst renewed Taliban pressure in 2021.