\u201cIn New York, fires were still burning at Ground Zero from the September 11 attacks a month earlier. The world felt upended,\u201d Albanese said of the start of Operation Slipper.<\/p>\n
Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThough it would change so devastatingly a year later in Bali, it was not yet directly our fight.<\/p>\n \u201cYet Australia did what is so resolutely in our nature. We went to support our friend and ally.<\/p>\n \u201cWe went because we saw what was at stake, and we went on the principle that September 11 was an attack on a way of life that belonged just as much to us.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the more than 35,000 defence force members deployed over the following two decades did so because the very freedoms \u201cthat are at the heart of who we are as a people and a nation were under threat\u201d.<\/p>\n Roberts-Smith, who denies the allegations against him, attended the event alongside family members and supporters, as well as former prime ministers John Howard, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison.<\/p>\n The governor general, Sam Mostyn, and the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, were also present in the bright sunshine.<\/p>\n Roberts-Smith was awarded Australia\u2019s highest military honour \u2013 the Victoria Cross \u2013 for his service in Afghanistan, but now faces accusations he murdered five unarmed detainees during his deployment.<\/p>\n The former Special Air Service regiment corporal sat alongside his partner, Sarah Matulin, after a judge agreed to vary his bail conditions to allow him to visit Canberra<\/a>.<\/p>\n Deployments to the Middle East continued until withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.<\/p>\n US troops left a few months later after signing an agreement with the Taliban, who swiftly returned to power and reintroduced authoritarian control, including strict suppression of women and girls\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n Some 47 Australian personnel died as a result of their service and 263 were wounded, while thousands more allied soldiers were killed.<\/p>\n Tens of thousands of civilians were also estimated to have been killed during the war.<\/p>\n Despite the controversy over Australia\u2019s military involvement in Afghanistan and its legacy, the troops who served on the ground remain intensely proud of what they achieved.<\/p>\n
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