The Dasht-i-Leili massacre occurred in December during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan when, depending on the sources, between several hundred to several thousand Taliban prisoners were shot and/or suffocated to death in metal shipping containers while being transferred by Junbish-i Milli soldiers under the supervision of forces loyal to General Rashid Dostum from Kunduz to Sheberghan prison in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (lit or, Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, "Organization of Jihad&#;s Base in the Arabian Peninsula"), or AQAP, also known as Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen (جماعة أنصار الشريعة, Jamā‘at Anṣār ash-Sharī‘ah, "Group of the Helpers of the Sharia"), is a militant Islamist organization, primarily active in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Hezbollah Al-Hejaz (حزب الله الحجاز; literally Party of God in the Hejaz), Hizbollah in the Hijaz or the Saudi Hizbollah, is a militant organization operating in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. It is a Shia organization founded in May in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province. It is pro-Khomeini as opposed to the pro-Shirazi Organization for the Islamic Revolution in the Arabian Peninsula (OIR; Munazzamat al-Thawra al-Islamiyya). It is outlawed in Saudi Arabia, being designated as a terrorist organization by the kingdom&#;s government on March .

President of the United States George W. Bush consistently referred to the Iraq War as "the central front in the War on Terror", and argued that if the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, "terrorists will follow us here." While other proponents of the war have regularly echoed this assertion, as the conflict has dragged on, members of the U.S. Congress, the American public, and even U.S. troops have begun to question the connection between Iraq and the fight against terrorism.

Mohammad Qasim Fahim (Pashto/محمد فهیم), also known as "Marshal Fahim"; – March ) was a politician in Afghanistan who served as Vice President from June until December and from November until his death. Between September and December , he also served as Defense Minister under the Afghan Transitional Administration. As military commander of the Northern Alliance, Fahim captured the Afghan capital Kabul in the fall of from the Taliban government. In , President Hamid Karzai provided Fahim the honorary title Marshal and a year later, he became member of the House of Elders. He later became a recipient of the Ahmad Shah Baba Medal. Fahim was a member of Afghanistan&#;s Tajik ethnic group. He was affiliated with the Jamiat Islami (Shura-e Nazar) party of Afghanistan.