After the September 11 attacks, the United States launched Operation Enduring Freedom as part of its "Global War on Terrorism", to remove the Taliban regime from power in Afghanistan.

Rabbani did not want the Bonn Conference to decide on names for the interim government but after pressure from the United States and Russia the Northern Alliance delegation headed by younger leader Yunus Qanuni, decided to go on with the talks with or without the support of Rabbani.

[2] At the beginning of the conference it seemed that King Zahir Shah had a lot of support, but the Northern Alliance opposed this.

The Northern Alliance received about half of the posts in the interim cabinet, and members of the Rome group were named to eight positions.

Afghanistan had been in a state of serious fragmentation and factionalism since the early 1990s; Karzai attempted to unify the country by working with and representing all four major ethnic groups in the cabinet.