jan 1, 2001 - Beginning of Canada's role in Afghanistan
Description:
In late 2001, Canada's role began in the war in Afghanistan (Afghanistan War). The role of Canada was to sent its first element of Canadian soldiers secretly in October 2001 from Joint Task Force 2, and the first contingents of regular Canadian troops reached in Afghanistan in January–February 2002. Canada took an even bigger part which started in 2006 after the Canadian troops were redeployed to Kandahar province. There was more than 2,400 Canadian Forces group in Afghanistan and 1,200 were involved the fight battle group. At the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper at the 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago declared that an undisclosed number of Canadian soldiers would prevail in the country to help train and mentor the Afghan National Army until 12 March 2014. However, Canadian troops ended their combat role there in 2011.
In September 2001 after the terrorist attacks on September 11, Minister of National Defence Art Eggleton urged Governor General Adrienne Clarkson to approve more than 90 Canadian Forces members serving on military transfer programs in the United States and other countries to participate in U.S. operations in Afghanistan. He summed up the prevailing thought in the government at the time when he said, "Any Canadian military deployment to Afghanistan may well be similar to a situation in Eritrea and Ethiopia where we went in on the first wave, we helped establish the stabilization, the basis for ongoing peace support operations that would come after ..." however, then turned it over to somebody else. The actions were aimed at identifying and neutralizing al-Qaeda members in that country, as well as toppling the Taliban regime, which was supporting international terrorism.
