Afghanistan timeline December 2001

December 31, 2001

U.S. President George W. Bush named Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, a top-ranking Muslim in the U.S. government, as a special envoy to help Afghanistan recover from Taliban rule.
Pashtun soldiers, once loyal to the Taliban, attacked 20 Uzbek troops walking toward Yol Abad, Afghanistan. The gun battle lasted 20 minutes. A soldier from each side died.
Seventy British troops arrived in Kabul, as Afghan Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni and British Major General John McColl, who is to lead the international force, signed an agreement setting up an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
In a US air-raid on a suspected arms dump, US bombs killed 107 civilians at a village near the town of Gardez. Witnesses found pools of blood, scraps of flesh and clumps of human hair among the destroyed houses. The U.S. military rejected the accusation.
A US military spokesman said that the US was holding 180 prisoners from al-Qaeda or the Taliban; 164 are being held in Kandahar.

An unmanned RQ-4 Global Hawk surveilance drone crashed while returning from a mission supporting the war in Afghanistan. The aircraft was not shot down and plans were made to recover the wreckage.

At least 92 Afghan civilians were killed in the US bombing of Nizai Qala in Paktia province overnight.

After surrounding a giant cave complex in the eastern Afghan region of Tora Bora, United States and Afghan troops intercepted a radio transmission that was believed to have come from Osama bin Laden. U.S. warplanes blanketed the area with bombs.