12,000 killed. According to Human Rights Watch, during the invasion the Northern Alliance "carried out systematic attacks on Pashtun villages, raping women, summarily executing civilians, and stealing livestock and land." Logistics A landlocked country with forbidding terrain and a harsh climate, Afghanistan presents major difficulties for military operations. Prior to the war, the United States had no military bases in Central or South Asia. The initial CIA Jawbreaker team entered Afghanistan by helicopter from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, stopping to refuel in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The US established its main base at Karshi-Khanabad Air Base (known as K2) in Uzbekistan. Personnel and equipment were flown from the large American bases in Germany to K2 and then onward to Afghanistan. Pakistan granted the use of Shahbaz Air Base in Jacobabad as an auxiliary base, and the CIA flew Predator drones from both Jacobabad and Shamsi Airfield. Masirah Island off the coast of Oman served as the headquarters of Joint Special Operations Command, while the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Indian Ocean was used as a platform for helicopters of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to fly special operations personnel into southern Afghanistan. Some B-52 bombers flew into Afghanistan from the island of Diego Garcia, and B-2 bombers flew nonstop from Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri to Afghanistan. Analysis According to historian Carter Malkasian, the campaign was a "striking military success". The United States achieved its war aims while committing a force of only 110 CIA officers, 350 special operators, and 5,000 Rangers and Marines. The model of special forces working with local fighters and calling in precision air strikes was heavily used by the United States during later operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. One explanation for the rapid victory is that in Afghan culture, fighters tend to defect to the winning side once its victory is seen as inevitable; as anthropologist Thomas Barfield puts it, "Just as the Taliban had come to power by persuading people that they were winners without fighting and buying the defection of wavering commanders with suitcases full of hundred-dollar bills, they lost the war in a reverse process." The pattern recurred during the 2021 Taliban offensive, when the US-backed government collapsed and a resurgent Taliban captured a dozen provincial capitals in a week before it entered Kabul unopposed. Legality Scholars have disputed the legality of the invasion under international law. The United States and its