Fighting continued at a stalemate until 2001, when the Taliban refused demands by the U.S. government to extradite Saudi Arabian exile Osama bin Laden, the leader of an Islamic extremist group, al-Qaeda, which had close ties with the Taliban and was accused of having launched terrorist attacks against the United States, including the group of devastating strikes on September 11. Subsequently, U.S. special operations forces, allied with Northern Alliance fighters, launched a series of military operations in Afghanistan that drove the Taliban from power by early December. (See Afghanistan War.) After a period of transitional interim government, a republic was established in 2004, but the new government struggled well into the 21st century to secure centralized authority over the country against a powerful Taliban insurgency.
