Some 39,000 Australian Defence Force members served over twenty years in Afghanistan, alongside diplomats, police, aid workers and civil officials — a deployment that began with a special forces task group in December 2001 and stretched to an embassy closure in May 2021.
The deployments: Operation Slipper, Uruzgan and mentoring the Afghan Army
Australia invoked the ANZUS Treaty on 14 September 2001 and established Operation Slipper on 11 October 2001. The first parts of a special forces task group reached Afghanistan in December 2001. The commitment expanded: a reconstruction task force in Uruzgan Province was announced in 2006; a Provincial Reconstruction Team helped build a 23-classroom girls high school in Tarin Kowt and deployed female engagement teams to meet Afghan women directly; and a mentoring effort partnered Australian soldiers with the Afghan National Army’s 4th Brigade, 205th Corps. Australia worked alongside the Netherlands in Uruzgan until 2010.
Costs, aid and the financial record
Quantifying the financial cost proved uneven. Defence told the Senate it spent A$8.4 billion on Operations Slipper and Highroad between 2001 and 2021; DFAT put the operating cost of its diplomatic presence from 2006 to 2021 at about A$566 million. Other estimates presented to the committee ranged from A$7.8 billion to A$13.6 billion, and the Senate committee described the evidence on costs as incomplete. Separately, Australia provided roughly A$1.5 to A$1.8 billion in development and humanitarian assistance over the period.
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See what we buildAchieved gains and human losses
Defence told the Senate its principal success was helping to deny terrorists a base in Afghanistan, and the Senate committee concluded that al‑Qaeda had been defeated there in the initial campaign. DFAT told the Senate the number of children with access to education rose from 0.8 million to 9.2 million, 39 percent of them girls; by 2021, nearly 1 million girls were enrolled in secondary school. Those educational gains were cited as tangible improvements in millions of lives over two decades.
The losses were heavy. Forty‑one Australians died in the line of duty; the Roll of Honour lists 47 who died as a result of their service. Around 263 Australians were wounded. Witnesses to the Senate said two decades of engagement had done little to build lasting governance and had propped up an ineffective government; in August 2021 the Taliban seized power as foreign forces withdrew. The Senate committee said the engagement would be analysed for years to come.
Veterans, suicide and the duty of care
The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide reported that at least 1,677 serving and ex‑serving ADF members had died by suicide between 1997 and 2021, and it estimated the true number of preventable deaths at upwards of 3,000. Although the commission’s remit covered all ADF service rather than Afghanistan alone, the war falls squarely within that period. The commission found that the complex compensation claims process had harmed mental health, and it prompted an unreserved apology from the then Defence chief. The commission made 122 recommendations, including a new statutory body to support the wellbeing of serving personnel and veterans. The author of the source material said the test of national commitment would be whether those recommendations are delivered — and delivered quickly.
Afghan partners, visas and the humanitarian crisis
Australia closed its Kabul embassy on 28 May 2021. DFAT told a parliamentary committee Australia evacuated 4,100 people, two‑thirds women and children. By October 2021 more than 26,000 visa applications from Afghans had reached the government against an initial offer of 3,000 humanitarian places; more than 100 former embassy security guards were at first sent rejection letters for one visa category before later being approved for another. The source material framed these figures as necessary but not sufficient to decide whether Australia met obligations to Afghans who directly supported its mission.
The humanitarian picture described in 2026 was stark. The UN estimated 21.9 million Afghans — 45 percent of the population — needed assistance in 2026, and by mid‑September only about 31 percent of required funding had been secured. More than 2.8 million Afghans returned from Iran and Pakistan in 2025 and over 1.2 million in 2026; a magnitude‑6‑plus earthquake flattened villages in the east. The UN’s education agency reported about 2.4 million girls were shut out of secondary school and that figure could approach 4 million by 2030. Australia’s budget estimate for aid to Afghanistan in 2026–27 is $50 million. Meanwhile, the UN Monitoring Team reported in February 2026 that al‑Qaeda continued to be active in Taliban‑controlled Afghanistan, providing training and advisory services and with its South Asian affiliate’s leader and deputy reported to remain in Kabul; the Taliban authorities’ denial of any terrorist presence was judged “not credible.”
What this means for veterans' families, Afghan partners, and policymakers
- Veterans' families: expect continued pressure for timely delivery of the Royal Commission’s 122 recommendations, clearer compensation processes and public reporting on progress so that memorial words are matched by services on the ground.
- Afghan partners and visa applicants: the record points to unresolved cases, delayed family reunions and the need for timely visas and public accounting of who was left behind, especially among interpreters, guards and other local employees who accepted serious risks.
- Policymakers and aid planners: face competing priorities — convening an independent, whole‑of‑government review of the war (building on the Senate’s 2022 work), scaling humanitarian and education support (including community‑based and online schooling for girls), and pragmatic engagement with the Taliban on counter‑terrorism, aid access and consular issues while involving Afghan Australians in shaping policy.
The people who served did what their country asked. The record assembled in parliamentary evidence, the Royal Commission and UN reports leaves a clear ledger: tangible educational and security gains; heavy human cost at home; Afghan partners in prolonged uncertainty; and an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Twenty‑five years on, remembrance must be more than ceremony. It should be the beginning of an honest national conversation and the start of delivering the obligations the sources say remain outstanding — to veterans and their families, to Afghan partners, and to the people of Afghanistan.
