ABSTRACT
In 1996, Osama bin Laden had made himself unwelcome in Sudan where he had arrived five years before with high hopes for himself and his terrorist organization.1 He had spent a good deal of his inherited fortune in Sudan with little to show for it. The only country accepting him in 1996 was Afghanistan, or, more accurately, the Taliban government that controlled about 90 percent of Afghanistan. Bin Laden’s organization is reputed to have paid the Taliban government a considerable amount of money to set up bases in that country. From 1996 to 2001, some 20,000 individuals reportedly received terrorist training in al Qaeda’s bases there.2 The September 11, 2001 attacks, sponsored by al Qaeda, prompted the US to invade Afghanistan a month later. This chapter seeks to answer the question of whether the invasion of Afghanistan violated international law.
