TIMELINE: Abdullah pulls out of Afghan election run-off

(Reuters) - Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah quit an election run-off on Sunday after accusing the government of not meeting his demands for a fair vote, but said he was not calling for a boycott.

Here is a timeline of major Afghan developments since 2001.

October 7, 2001 - U.S. and British planes begin bombing to root out al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his Taliban protectors.

November 13 - Anti-Taliban Northern Alliance forces enter Kabul.

December 5 - Afghan groups sign deal in Bonn on interim government headed by ethnic Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai.

June 19, 2002 - Karzai sworn in as president for 18 months.

October 9, 2004 - Presidential election. Karzai declared winner and sworn in on December 7.

September 18, 2005 - Elections for a lower house of parliament. Parliament sits for first time on December 19.

January 31, 2006 - Afghanistan receives pledges of $10.5 billion to help it fight poverty and the drug trade.

July 30 - NATO forces take control of security in the south, moving from Kabul and the safer north and west.

October 5 - NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) assumes responsibility for security across the country.

March 2, 2007 - Pakistani security forces capture Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the Taliban's third most senior leader, in Quetta in Pakistan.

May 13 - Mullah Dadullah, a Taliban commander in the south, killed in a clash with Western and Afghan forces in Helmand.

June 12, 2008 - Donors pledge about $20 billion in aid at a Paris conference but say Kabul must do more to fight corruption.

July 7 - Suicide car bomb hits Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 58 people and wounding 141.

August 19 - Suspected Taliban insurgents kill 10 French troops and wound 21 in ambush east of the capital, the biggest single loss of foreign forces in combat in Afghanistan since 2001.

December 5 - Karzai and new Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari pledge to boost cooperation and agree a joint strategy to fight al Qaeda and other militants along their shared border.

January 27, 2009 - Thousands of U.S. troops move into two key provinces in eastern Afghanistan as part of strategy of outgoing Bush administration.

February 17 - New U.S. President Barack Obama orders 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan to tackle intensifying insurgency.

March 27 - Obama announces plans to send a further 4,000 U.S. troops to train Afghan security forces, along with civilian personnel to improve delivery of basic services.

March 29 - Karzai announces he will stay in office after his term officially ends on May 21 until elections in August. He later says he will run for re-election.

May 11 - Top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan General David McKiernan is fired by Obama. U.S. General Stanley McChrystal takes command of international troops on June 15.

August 15 - Taliban claims responsibility for a suicide car bomb that killed seven people and wounded 100 outside the NATO-led ISAF headquarters in Kabul, near the U.S. embassy.

August 20 - National elections.

September 2 - A suicide bomber kills at least 23 people, including the deputy head of intelligence, Abdullah Laghmani.

October 8 - A bomb blast outside the Indian embassy in Kabul kills 17 and wounds 76. The Taliban claim responsibility.

October 19 - U.S. election observers Democracy International say a run-off vote is needed because the U.N.-led probe into election fraud has pushed him below 50 percent of the vote.

October 20 - The Independent Election Commission announces Karzai will face Abdullah Abdullah in a second round after the U.N.-backed fraud watchdog throws out hundreds of thousands of votes.

-- Karzai says the decision to hold a second round run-off in November is legal and constitutional.

October 21 - Half the most senior district election officials will be replaced, U.N. officials say, to prevent more fraud in a run-off presidential poll.

October 28 - Taliban militants kill six U.N. foreign staff and wound nine in an assault on an international guest-house in Kabul.

November 1 - Abdullah quits the November 7 run-off because the IEC and the government have not met his demands, including the sacking of top election officials.