U.S. war after 9/11 targeting the Taliban and terrorist groups?

• A. Decolonization
• B. Great Recession
• C. War in Afghanistan
• D. Iraq War

Answer: (C)

After 9/11, the United States focused its military effort on removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan because they had sheltered al-Qaeda, the group responsible for the attacks. This effort is known as the War in Afghanistan, which began in 2001 with a U.S.-led invasion aimed at dismantling al-Qaeda’s operational base and overthrowing the Taliban regime. The conflict then evolved into a long counterinsurgency and nation-building effort that continued for many years, with international coalition involvement.

The other options refer to different events: decolonization describes mid-20th-century independence movements; the Great Recession was a financial crisis in the late 2000s; the Iraq War began in 2003 and targeted Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s weapons programs, not the Taliban or al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.