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Bin Laden had escaped to the White Mountains. The US and a coalition of over 40 countries (including all NATO members) remained in the country and formed a UN sanctioned security mission called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Their goal was to support a new democratic authority in the country and prevent the return of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. At the Bonn Conference held in December of 2001, new Afghan interim authorities, primarily from the Northern Alliance, elected Hamid Karzai to head the Afghan Interim Administration.
In exile, the Taliban reorganized under Mullah Omar and in 2003 launched an insurgency against the new Afghan government. The Taliban and other groups launched guerrilla raids and ambushes in the countryside, suicide attacks against urban targets, and reprisals against those they perceived to be collaborators with ISAF. The Taliban gained strength in the rural areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan and were successful in retaking large parts of Afghanistan by 2007. ISAF responded by massively increasing troops for counter-insurgency operations. By 2011 there were roughly 140,000 foreign troops operating under ISAF and US command in Afghanistan.
Following the killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, leaders of the NATO alliance began planning an exit strategy for withdrawing their forces. In 2011, President Barack Obama announced that the US would withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and on December 28, 2014, NATO formally ended ISAF combat operations in Afghanistan and officially transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government. A significant number of US troops were withdrawn by 2014, but 9,800 US soldiers remained deployed inside of Afghanistan. General John F. Campbell requested an additional 1,000 US troops.
Under President Donald Trump, the US strategy in Afghanistan called for "an increase in special operations forces to train, advise and assist Afghan forces; a more robust plan to go after elements in Pakistan that aid the Taliban; the deployment of more air power and artillery; and a political commitment to the survival of the current government in Kabul". By July of 2017, the official number of US troops operating in Afghanistan was 8,400. President Trump approved an increase of troop numbers for military operations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. On August 21, 2017, President Trump announced his administration's new strategy for Afghanistan, saying "victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over the country, and stopping mass terror attacks against Americans before they emerge".
On August 24, 2017, General John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, confirmed that troop levels, would depend on the momentum of the war effort and on-the-ground conditions, not "arbitrary timelines". Trump did not specify the number of troops to be committed under his new open-ended strategy, but the Washington Post reported on August 30 that the additional US forces for Afghanistan would likely include paratroopers as well as small Marine artillery detachments and that air support in the form of more F-16 fighters, A-10 ground attack aircraft and additional B-52 bomber support, or a combination of all three, were likely to be used. The same day, the Department of Defense confirmed that there were more troops in Afghanistan than previously acknowledged. The Pentagon stated the actual "total force" number was closer to 11,000 rather than the previously stated 8,400.
In September 2017, the Trump administration sent over 3,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, bringing the total number of US forces in Afghanistan to more than 14,000. General Austin "Scott" Miller took command of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan in September 2018, at which time there were 15,000 US troops deployed. In September 2019, peace talks with the Taliban ended abruptly and the following month General Miller announced that US forces had been reduced to 13,000
In December 2019, the Afghanistan Papers revealed that high-ranking military and government officials were generally of the opinion that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable. By this time nearly 2,400 Americans had died in the war, and over 20,000 had been wounded. In February 2020, the Trump administration had agreed with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces by May 1, 2021.
In April 2021, President Biden formally announced that American troops would withdraw from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, ending the nation's longest war. Soon after the withdrawal of U.S. troops started, the Taliban launched an offensive against the Afghan government. They advanced quickly as Afghan Armed Forces collapsed. In spite of this, President Biden defended his decision for the withdrawal, by saying that he had trust in "the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped and more competent in terms of conducting war." But this was not the case. By early July 2021, most of the American troops in Afghanistan were withdrawn.
Biden addressed the withdrawal, stating that: "The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely." Once again, the remark did not accord with realuity. By August 15 the Afghan government collapsed, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and Kabul fell to the Taliban. Biden sent 6,000 American troops to assist in the evacuation of American personnel and Afghan allies. The following day Biden accepted responsibility for what had occurred, telling reporters, "the buck stops with me." He admitted that things had "unfolded more quickly than we had anticipated" but he defended his decision to withdraw, saying that Americans should not be "dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves." He also blamed the lack of early evacuation of Afghan civilians to the Afghan government's opposition of a "mass exodus", because they thought it would cause a "crisis of confidence".
On August 26, a suicide attack was carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing more than 170 people, including at least 62 Afghan civilians, 13 US service members, w British nationals and the child of a third British national. Following the attack, Biden made a statement honoring the American service members who were killed, calling them "heroes" and saying they lost their lives "in the service of liberty." He said that the US had evacuated more than 100,000 Americans, Afghans, and others and also expressed deep sorrow for the Afghan victims. He added that for those who wished harm upon the US that "we will hunt you down and make you pay."
Biden has received harsh criticism from both Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress. For example Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said "I think the Biden administration should have had a contingency plan for the rapid fall of the Afghan government, and a more orderly process for evacuation." Republicans have called for his resignation or for his impeachment. Biden's approval numbers have subsequently dropped to below 50 percent.