Contemporary Conflict

During 2023 and 2024, Imperial War Museums (IWM) and King’s Centre for Military Health Research (KCMHR) at King’s College London collaborated on an oral history project called Voices of Service. Listen to excerpts from interviews with people who served in Afghanistan and their families.

In August 2021, British military personnel arrived in Afghanistan as part of a multinational non-combatant evacuation operation, code-named Operation Pitting, to evacuate British and eligible Afghan nationals from Kabul following the rapid military offensive by the resurgent Taliban to take control of the country.

In 2014, British combat troops left Afghanistan. British forces had been in the country since 2001 when they were sent as part of a coalition tasked with intervening in Afghanistan to find the leaders of al-Qaeda after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In this episode of IWM Stories, Chris Cooper explores the timeline of events that led from the 9/11 terror attacks to US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair invading Saddam Hussein's Iraq. 

On 20 March 2003, a coalition led by the United States invaded Iraq. Also known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, the attack was the first stage of the Iraq War. It took less than three weeks for coalition forces to surge into Baghdad and end Saddam Hussein’s 30-year reign. However, Operation Iraqi Freedom is far more complex than at first glance. 

In March 2003, a coalition led by the United States invaded Iraq. This was the first stage of the Iraq War, with coalition forces taking control of the country within a matter of weeks. What started as an insurgency would soon develop into sectarian civil war.

Pulitzer-prize winning photographer Sergey Ponomarev has covered subjects ranging from daily life in his homeland of Russia to conflicts including the Libyan civil war and combat in Afghanistan. 

During a trip to Aleppo, Rick Findler took this image of Free Syrian Army fighters using a catapult to fire home-made explosives. 

Despite its simple origins, Syria’s conflict is anything but. What began as a peaceful protest movement challenging an autocratic government has evolved into a complex multi-layered war. Domestically, despite capturing territory from the Government early on, opposition fighters have been divided, allowing Assad to slowly reclaim some lost ground. 

Discover the story of a satirical poster recently acquired by IWM's Contemporary Conflict team.