In Afghanistan, Hamid “Karzai was sworn in [as president] on December 22 [2001] in a solemn ceremony attended by some two thousand tribal chiefs, warlords, [Central Command leader] General [Tommy] Franks, and the world’s diplomats. The new president gave an enormously moving speech that brought tears to the eyes of many grizzled warriors. ‘Our country […]
12/22/2001
“On December 22 [2001], a British passenger named Richard Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines flight carrying 197 people from Paris to Miami by detonating explosives in his shoes. Fortunately, an alert flight attendant noticed his suspicious behavior, and passengers overwhelmed him before he could light the fuse. The plane was diverted to […]
12/22/2001
“In Operation Enduring Freedom [which launched on October 7, 2001], Central Command and its Afghan allies had defeated the Taliban regime and destroyed Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist sanctuary in seventy-six days [by December 22, 2001].” – Tommy Franks with Malcolm McConnell, American Soldier, Page xvi […]
12/22/2001
“The United Nations organized a conference of non-Taliban Afghan tribal leaders, and on December 22 [2001] Hamid Karzai, an India-educated, ethnic Pashtun from southern Afghanistan, was installed in Kabul as president.” – Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell, Page 353 […]
12/22/2001
On November 13, 2001, amidst Phase Three of Operation Enduring Freedom, “the Taliban had fled from Kabul [Afghanistan]. By early December, all major cities had fallen to the coalition. On December 22 [2001], Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader from Kandahar, was installed as chairman of Afghanistan’s interim administration. Afghanistan had been liberated from the rule […]
12/22/2001
“Richard Reid, the so-called ‘shoe bomber’…was captured aboard American Airlines Flight 63 en route from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001. …The FBI later confirmed that there were two TATP [triacetone triperoxide]-based IEDs [improvised explosive devices] hidden in his shoes, prompting airlines worldwide to force passengers to remove footwear as they passed through airport […]
12/21/2001
Former CIA Director George Tenet wrote: “Sometimes the threats mentioned would strike you as absurd, and then al-Qa’ida would do something to convince you that nothing was out of the range of possibility. Who, for example, would have thought that exploding footwear could be a major air travel problem–until, that is, December 21, 2001, when […]
12/20/2001
“ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] grew out of the UN-sponsored conference of a wide range of Afghan leaders, which met in Bonn [Germany] in December [20] 2001. At that same meeting, the leaders also established the Afghan Transitional Authority, led by Hamid Karzai, and laid the groundwork for the political revitalization of Afghanistan.” – Dov […]
12/20/2001
On December 20, 2001, a New York Times article by Judith Miller declared: ” ‘An Iraqi defector who described himself as a civil engineer said he personally worked on renovations of secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in underground wells, private villas and under the Saddam Hussein hospital in Baghdad as recently as […]
12/20/2001
“The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which aimed to assist the Afghan Transitional Authority in creating and maintaining a safe and secure environment in Kabul and its surrounding area, was created in December [20] 2001 in negotiations led by the British, authorised by United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1386 and successive resolutions (the latest […]