The Afghan Armed Forces were called the Afghan National Army (ANA) while under the direction of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from 2004 (and previously the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan from 2002), until the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in 2021. As of 2020, components of the ANA included the conventional ground forces, the Special Operations Command, the Territorial Force, the Afghan Air Force, the Afghan National Civil Order Force, and the Afghan Border Force. The ANA and several other agencies formed the Afghan National Security Forces.

The United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was assisted by various anti-Taliban Afghan militias. These factional militias formed the Afghan Military Forces (AMF) during the political transition under the early Karzai administration, while the United States began training the first army battalions. Hamid Karzai signed the decree on the founding of the Afghan National Army on 1 December 2002. The first ANA battalions began training in May 2002, the regional corps structure began to be established in 2003, and the first national military strategy was adopted in 2004. Early deployments of the ANA included operations along the border with Pakistan, intervening to stop infighting among militias, and providing security for the 2004 presidential election. The role of the army in combat operations increased in 2005, with the ANA conducting several missions alongside coalition forces. The AMF militias were demobilized, and some of their members became part of the ANA.

Although the ANA and the police did much of the fighting during the 2006 Taliban offensive, it revealed that the army was too small to handle the rising Taliban insurgency. The creation of the ANA Air Corps, Commandos, and Civil Order Force took place shortly after the 2006 offensive. The ANA continued to slowly grow during 2007 and 2008 while conducting operations against the Taliban with coalition troops, but the group still expanded its control over the Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south. Fighters also entered eastern Afghanistan from Pakistan, getting closer to Kabul. In 2009, President Barack Obama began a troop surge in Afghanistan, which included additional advisors to increase the ANA's capabilities and prepare for the "transition" of the war from international forces to the Afghan government. That year the ANA surpassed its original target strength of 70,000 soldiers.

Between 2009 and 2012, the ANA worked with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan police forces to increase stability in Helmand and Kandahar. In 2013 the Afghan government was at its greatest territorial control since the start of the insurgency. The scale of Taliban attacks on Afghan forces began to increase that year, and continued to do so after ISAF ended its mission and made the ANA fully responsible for military operations at the end of 2014. In 2015, the Taliban made its largest territorial gains since 2006, and briefly captured a provincial capital for the first time since 2001, before it was retaken by ANA and US Army special forces. The ANA experienced growing casualties and demoralization in the years after 2014, and became reliant on Commandos because the regular forces frequently abandoned their posts without much resistance. Although the ANA reached a size of nearly 170,000 troops as of 2016, by the end of that year the Taliban was in its strongest position since before the 2009 foreign troop surge.

In 2018 the Taliban nearly captured two major cities from the regular military, Farah and Ghazni, which had to be retaken by Afghan and US special forces. By that year, the Border Police and Civil Order Police were transferred to the ANA, and a Territorial Force was also established. As of mid-2019, ANA bases and checkpoints were being overrun by the Taliban on a frequent basis. After the United States–Taliban deal in 2020, the ANA went on an "active defense posture," while the Taliban increased its activity, besieging many provincial capitals. The ANA's logistics were severely undermined by the Taliban cutting off roads shortly before the 2021 Taliban offensive. The Taliban started the offensive by targeting districts. Although the ANA initially retook some districts from the Taliban, the vast majority remained under the group's control. Several provincial capitals fell in early August 2021. Regional corps were overrun, and as of 15 August 2021, all corps and the capital division in Kabul had surrendered or been captured. Some ANA soldiers continued to fight for up to a month after the collapse, and some joined the Republican insurgency in Afghanistan. The Taliban has regularly used former soldiers and officers in the reconstituted Afghan Armed Forces after the disintegration of the ANA.

History Origin and formation

Following the United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, a US-backed Afghan government was established within the framework of the December 2001 Bonn agreement. It began a political transition period under the Afghan Interim Administration, which was replaced in June 2002 when the Emergency Loya Jirga elected the Afghan Transitional Administration, in the lead-up to the 2004 Afghan presidential election. Hamid Karzai, who led the interim authorities from 2001, became the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. After the Taliban government fell in 2001, Afghan militia forces numbering around 100,000 men filled the security vacuum. Among the largest and best equipped militias were those of former Northern Alliance intelligence chief Mohammed Fahim, and the warlords Ismael Khan and Abdul Rashid Dostum. The Bonn agreement founded the Afghan Military Forces (AMF) under the Ministry of Defense, organized into eight corps and 40 "divisions" (which were not comparable to a typical military division). Unit titles and individual ranks in the AMF were only vague indicators of status. These militia forces were still loyal to individual commanders rather than to the Afghan state, and the Transitional Administration faced the task of building a national military while demobilizing the factional militias.

Though it was decided at a meeting of international donors in April 2002 that the United States would lead the creation of an Afghan army, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was reluctant to spend resources on the task, choosing to let the Northern Alliance and the warlords be responsible for security, as did Gen. Tommy Franks of United States Central Command. The main concern of the United States at the time was going after the Taliban remnants and Al-Qaeda. It was not until October 2002 that US Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry became the head of the newly formed Office of Military Cooperation–Afghanistan (OMCA), which was tasked with building the Afghan National Army (ANA) as an ethnically balanced and professional force. Eikenberry would become known among Afghan leaders as "the father of the Afghan National Army." In May 2002 the coalition had started a program to train a number of 600-man ANA battalions, mainly by the United States Army Special Forces (Green Berets), along with a presidential guard that was to be trained by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Afghan recruits were assembled into battalions (kandaks), assigned unit leaders, and put through ten weeks of training. The coalition faced many challenges, including overcoming tribal and ethnic loyalties, as well as finding NCOs and junior officers, which was done from among veterans of the militias and the Communist-era Afghan army. Desertion rates were initially very high (50%), but dropped to 30% in 2003. The battalions were disproportionately Tajik, despite an attempt to create a balanced ethnic mix.

The military command was initially dominated by the Shura-e Nazar, the political-military cell of the Northern Alliance, which had been dissolved and reformed under the Afghan Interim Administration. Mohammed Fahim became the minister of defense, promoting himself from general to marshal in April 2002, and the alliance's leading front-line commander, Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, became the Chief of the General Staff. In early June 2002, a Defense Commission was established in the Transitional Administration to coordinate the effort to build a military, and was subordinated to Fahim instead of President Karzai. On 1 December 2002, Karzai signed the decree on the creation of the Afghan National Army for the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan. The decree specified that it would be a balanced mix of Afghanistan's ethnic groups, and was announced the next day at the Bonn Conference of foreign donors. Throughout 2002 and early 2003, the AMF units were deployed under the defense ministry and along side the US military, while the US led the training of the ANA. The number of militia forces was reduced to 45,000 by the end of 2003. ANA units went on one-month tours of duty with embedded US advisors starting in early 2003, and as of May, nine ANA battalions were either complete or in training.

Eikenberry and Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani decided on an army target strength of 70,000. The ANA began to be formed in and around Kabul, with the Central Corps being formally activated on 30 August 2003 at Pol-e-charkhi. Four regional commands were also established by presidential decree in September 2003, which were based at Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Kandahar, and Gardez. In late 2003, regional recruitment centers were established, and the coalition reached an agreement with the Afghan Ministry of Defense to use common population figures for recruitment, which increased enlistment of Pashtuns, Hazara, and Uzbeks. Eikenberry initially focused on developing the General Staff, the Ministry of Defense, and the Central Corps in the Kabul area, which had a strength of 7,000 men in February 2004. The Central Corps completed its formation in June 2004, reaching a strength of three brigades (10,000 men), and new battalions that graduated after that were sent from Kabul to other regions. During that year, elements of the ANA Central Corps were deployed outside of Kabul on several occasions, including to provide security during the ratification of the new constitution of the Islamic Republic, and the ceremony for the opening of the Bagram-Kandahar section of the Ring Road.

On 21 October 2004, Afghanistan adopted its first National Military Strategy, developed by the Afghan MOD and the OMCA. It stated that the ANA, composed of ground and air forces, would support the political transition, replace all militia forces, and fight and disarm all illegal groups, independently or in cooperation with the coalition. In February 2005, the ANA had 21,200 soldiers (including 3,400 in training). The process of disbanding militia forces, the Afghan New Beginnings Programme (ANBP), was launched on 6 April 2003, overseen by the United Nations and Japan, and implemented by Afghanistan's defense ministry. Some warlords accepted the Karzai administration, while others resisted and continued to engage in criminal activity. As of September 2004, only 13,200 militia members out of the 100,000 had taken the option of either learning a civilian job skill or joining the ANA, leaving the rest unemployed. Some of the latter formed bands to set up roadblocks and take illegal tolls. A British officer, Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist, oversaw the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) program, and by May 2005 most heavy weapons had been collected from the militias. Those that were still serviceable were given to the ANA.

Early missions and expansion