The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began in October 2001 following a series of ultimatums to the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden whom the United States asserted was responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks. The Taliban regime appeared to overrule a decision by an emergency meeting of Afghan clerics to ask bin Laden to leave voluntarily, and declared that it would be an insult to Islam to hand him over without any actual evidence of guilt.[28] Anti-Taliban forces retook the country, and a new government was set up under Hamid Karzai in December 2001.