After the major fighting in Afghanistan had ended with the ousting of the Taliban. On April 17, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush presented the Marshall Plan. Under the Marshall Plan, Congress appropriated over $38 billion to spend on humanitarian efforts and to train the Afghan military. In June of the same year, Hamid Karzai, the leader of the Popalzai Durrani tribe, was chosen to lead the new Afghan government. 8,000 troops remained in Afghanistan under the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The U.S. military's focus shifted in 2003 to Iraq and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared that all "major combat" operations had ended in Afghanistan. The first Afghan democratic elections were held since the beginning of the war on October 9, 2004, under a new constitution. Hamid Karzai was elected president of Afghanistan and would serve for two five year terms. The focus of the ISAF at this time was reconstruction and peacekeeping, however, with the U.S.'s main focus on Iraq, the Taliban regrouped and their attacks increased.
On February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama sent 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan on top of the 36,000 American and 32,000 NATO troops already in Afghanistan. He did this to "stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan" he said. NATO forces agreed to transition power to the Afghan security forces by 2015. On May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEALs found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. After the death of bin Laden, Obama planned to withdrawal all American troops by 2014, however, he changed plans in 2013 and decided to leave 9,800 American troops to train the Afghan security forces. In 2015, the Taliban bombed the parliament building and an airport in Kabul as well as several suicide bombings.
In 2017, newly-elected U.S. President Donald Trump allowed to make combat decisions in Afghanistan. On April 13, 2017, the U.S. dropped the most powerful non-nuclear bomb(B MOAB) on a remote ISIS cave complex. Still, the Taliban continued its terror attacks and the U.S. entered peace talks with the Taliban in February of 2019. They reached a deal that included the full withdraw of troops, however, Trump called off the talks after a Taliban attack killed a U.S. soldier and 11 others. Peace talks resumed later that February and a deal was made, however, the Taliban attacks and American airstrikes continued. In September 2020, the Afghan government and the Taliban entered peace talks and in November, Trump stated that he would reduce the troop numbers to 2,500 by January 15, 2021.