The U.S.’ War on Terror has endured for 15 years and has cost U.S. taxpayers over 1.75 trillion dollars. MyGovCost is marking the occasion by illustrating its accumulating cost from year to year along with a timeline of the major events that have defined it.
| Timeline of Key Events in War on Terror from September 11, 2001 through September 11, 2016 |
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|---|---|
| Month | Events |
| Sep-2001 | Al Qaeda attack on World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Virginia using passenger planes on September 11. The phrase “War on Terror” is officially used for the first time by President Bush on September 20. |
| Oct-2001 | War in Afghanistan begins with U.S.-led NATO combat operations on October 7. |
| Nov-2001 | Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul falls to U.S. and NATO troops as Taliban are driven from power. |
| Jan-2002 | Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp for foreign terrorists captured abroad is opened. |
| Nov-2002 | U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 1441, offering Iraq’s Saddam Hussein’s regime a “final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations” on November 8. |
| Mar-2003 | Iraq War begins on March 20. Baghdad is captured by U.S. troops 20 days later. |
| May-2003 | Major combat operations in Afghanistan end on May 1. |
| Sep-2004 | Battle to retake Iraqi city of Fallujah from Sunni insurgents begins on September 8. U.S. troops finally retake Fallujah on November 7. |
| Nov-2005 | U.S. begins initiative to root out foreign fighters infiltrating into Iraq on November 5. |
| Dec-2005 | President Bush acknowledges that his decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the result of faulty intelligence. |
| Jun-2006 | Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is killed on June 8. |
| Jul-2006 | Taliban insurgency grows and violence returns to Afghanistan. |
| Oct-2006 | Al Qaeda in Iraq rebrands itself as the Islamic State of Iraq on October 15. |
| Jan-2007 | The Iraq “Surge” to address increasing Sunni insurgent activity in Iraq is announced by President Bush on January 10. |
| Nov-2007 | Success in surge in restoring peace allows for troops supporting it to begin leaving Iraq on November 24. |
| Feb-2008 | The Iraq Surge is officially scheduled to end in July 2008 as U.S. troops will be reduced to near pre-Surge levels on February 16. |
| Sep-2008 | Escalating attacks by extremists make 2008 the most deadly year for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan since 2001. 31,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, will increase to 36,000 by end of January 2009, with NATO forces totaling 32,000. |
| Feb-2009 | Further U.S. troop reductions in Iraq are announced by President Obama on February 1. Later in the month, President Obama approves deployment of additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. |
| Jun-2009 | U.S. troops redeploy to leave Iraqi cities on June 30. |
| Jul-2009 | U.S. Marines launch major offensive operation in southern Afghanistan as part of new counterinsurgency strategy. |
| Dec-2009 | President Obama announces Surge strategy for Afghanistan on December 1. With 71,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the surge will add another 32,000 to 35,000. |
| Aug-2010 | Combat operations in Iraq end on August 31. |
| May-2011 | Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan on May 1. |
| Jun-2011 | President Obama announces troop withdrawals in Afghanistan on June 22. |
| Dec-2011 | Iraq War officially ends as last U.S. troops leave Iraq on December 18. |
| Sep-2012 | Islamist militants kills 4 Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya on September 11. |
| May-2013 | Islamic State in Iraq merges with Nusra Front in Syria to create the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which is also referred to as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), on May 9, 2013. International campaign against ISIS begins one month later. |
| Jan-2014 | ISIS takes control of Fallujah, Iraq on January 4. Ten days later, it takes control of Raqqa, Syria. |
| May-2014 | President Obama announces U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan on May 27. |
| Jun-2014 | ISIS takes control of Mosul, Iraq on June 10. It captures the city of Tikrit, Iraq two days later. |
| Aug-2014 | President Obama authorizes airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq on August 2. |
| Sep-2014 | U.S. begins airstrikes against ISIS in Syria on September 22. |
| Dec-2014 | War in Afghanistan ends when NATO officially ends combat operations on December 28. |
| Jan-2015 | War in Afghanistan resumes when Taliban resurgence forces NATO’s plans to remove troops to be delayed until end of 2016. |
| Apr-2015 | Iraqi forces take back Tikrit from ISIS with assistance from U.S. airstrikes on April 1. |
| May-2015 | Iraqi city of Ramadi falls to ISIS on May 17. Five days later, Syrian city of Palmyra falls, as ISIS gains control over half of Syria’s territory. |
| Oct-2015 | President Obama abandons plan to remove all remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan by end of 2016 and instead commits to keep them there through 2017. |
| Feb-2016 | U.S. deploys hundreds of troops to Afghanistan to combat resurgence of Taliban on February 8. |
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