The International Intervention and its Impact on Security Governance in North-East Afghanistan

When, in late 2001, US air power, US Special Forces and Afghan militias ousted the Taliban from Afghanistan, the US found itself involved in a country that was virtually devoid of any formalized state structures. The rudimentary state institutions of the Taliban were all but wiped out, the ministries were empty, and security in the towns and villages was in the hands of local commanders and their gunmen.