Sept. 11, 2026

"Creating the Point of the Spear": The Deployment of Kitty Hawk (CV-63) as an Afloat Forward Staging Base During Operation Enduring Freedom

Within a month of the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, DC, the United States began a military offensive against al-Qaeda’s center of operations in Afghanistan and the country’s ruling Taliban regime, which had harbored the terrorist organization since the mid-1990s.