From the Heritage Foundation, I'm Tim Desher, and this is Heritage Explains.

On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist

training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

These carefully targeted actions are designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations

and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime.

I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands, closed terrorist training camps,

hand over leaders of the al-Qaeda network,

and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens unjustly detained in your country.

None of these demands were met.

And now, the Taliban will pay a price.

Do you remember October 7th, 2001, now over 19 years ago, when President George W. Bush

announced that our brave men and women would go to war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This, of course, after the terrorist attacks on 9-11.

While there were early signs of victory,

the war has continued to rage on,

becoming the longest war the U.S. has ever been a part of.

Here's ABC news coverage from 2008, demonstrating the ferocious fighting of the Taliban.

This is one of the deadliest attacks of the war.

Allaha'iqbar!

The target of a remote U.S. outpost in Warnat.

Just a few hours earlier, Taliban fighters on their way to kill American soldiers.

They chat calmly on their radios.

...