At 6:30 in the evening on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 attacks, the first bombs fell. Five B-1 Lancers and ten B-52 Stratofortresses had launched from Diego Garcia, a coral atoll in the Indian Ocean over 4,000 kilometers from their targets. Twenty-five F-14 Tomcats and F/A-18 Hornets flew from aircraft carriers in the North Arabian Sea. Two B-2 Spirits -- the most expensive aircraft ever built -- arrived from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, halfway around the world. Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital and the city where Mullah Omar had consolidated his power, was among the first targets of what would become America's longest war.
The scale of the opening assault reflected both the military's capabilities and the political pressure to respond decisively to September 11. By 9:00 PM, U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Royal Navy forces had launched fifty Tomahawk cruise missiles against Taliban military installations, communications facilities, and suspected terrorist training camps. RAF and USAF tanker aircraft -- L-1011 TriStars, KC-135 Stratotankers, KC-10 Extenders -- provided aerial refueling to keep the naval strike aircraft in the fight. EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare planes jammed Taliban radar and communications. The Taliban responded with sporadic anti-aircraft artillery fire and surface-to-air missiles, but their air defenses were quickly neutralized. The U.S. considered the first strikes against Kabul, Jalalabad, Herat, and Kandahar successful: the Taliban could no longer contest the sky.
Even as the explosions shook Kandahar, a parallel operation was underway. Two C-17 Globemaster transports dropped 37,500 daily food rations to Afghan refugees on the first day of the bombing campaign -- an attempt to demonstrate that America's war was with the Taliban, not the Afghan people. The USAF deployed an EC-130E Commando Solo aircraft to broadcast messages in local languages reinforcing that point. But the gesture was complicated on the ground. Taliban soldiers raided World Food Programme storehouses in Kandahar, seizing approximately 7,000 tons of food supplies intended for civilians. The juxtaposition was stark: bombers and cargo planes sharing the same sky over the same city, one delivering destruction and the other sustenance, while the people below had little control over which arrived first.
As the air campaign continued through October and November, Taliban forces suffered rapid setbacks across Afghanistan. Mullah Omar consolidated his remaining military strength in Kandahar, the movement's birthplace and ideological center. The United States moved to encircle the city. On November 18, they enlisted Gul Agha Sherzai, an anti-Taliban commander and former governor of Kandahar Province, to organize ground forces from the south. A week later, on November 25, the U.S. airlifted 750 Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit to establish Camp Rhino, a forward operating base roughly 100 miles south of the city. British paratroopers from the 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, prepared to deploy as well. The combination of relentless air bombardment, encircling ground forces, and the collapse of Taliban positions elsewhere in the country made Kandahar's fall a matter of when, not whether.
The Taliban surrendered Kandahar on December 7, 2001 -- exactly sixty years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a coincidence no one in the American military establishment failed to notice. The two-month campaign that began with cruise missiles and strategic bombers ended with a negotiated handover. Mullah Omar slipped away, vanishing into the countryside he knew far better than any foreign force. Kandahar, a city that had survived Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union, absorbed this latest upheaval as it had all the others. The bombing campaign achieved its immediate military objectives: Taliban air defenses were destroyed, their command structure disrupted, their hold on the city broken. What it could not achieve -- and what two decades of subsequent operations would also fail to accomplish -- was a lasting transformation of the political landscape. The Taliban would return to Kandahar, as they always had.
Located at 31.62N, 65.72E in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. Ahmad Shah Baba International Airport (OAKN, formerly Kandahar Airfield) is immediately southeast of the city and served as a major coalition military base throughout the war. The city sits in the Arghandab valley with the Hindu Kush to the north and the flat Registan desert to the south. Camp Rhino, the Marine forward base established during this campaign, was located approximately 100 miles south of the city. Recommended viewing altitude: 10,000-15,000 feet AGL for a strategic overview of the city and surrounding terrain.