For almost two years, the ISAF mandate did not go beyond the boundaries of Kabul. According to General Norbert Van Heyst , such a deployment would require at least an extra ten thousand soldiers. The responsibility for security throughout the whole of Afghanistan was to be given to the newly-constituted Afghan National Army. However, on October 13, 2003, the Security Council voted unanimously to expand the ISAF mission beyond Kabul. Shortly thereafter, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said that Canadian peacekeepers (nearly half of the entire force) would not deploy outside Kabul.
On October 24, the GermanBundestag voted to send German troops to the region of Kunduz. Around 230 additional soldiers are deployed to that region, marking the first time that ISAF soldiers operated outside of Kabul.
Command
ISAF command rotated among different nations on a 6-month basis. However there was tremendous difficulty securing new lead nations. To solve the problem, command was turned over indefinitely to NATO on August 11, 2003. This marked NATO's first deployment outside Europe or North America. That day, Nicholas Burns , the U.S. ambassador to NATO wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the mandate of ISAF should be expanded beyond the capital Kabul. One option he suggested would be for NATO to participate in U.S.-led "Provincial Reconstruction Teams" which were already active in trying to enforce security outside Kabul. NATO spokesman Mark Laity insisted, however, that NATO would stick to ISAF's Kabul-oriented mandate.
June2002 to February 10, 2003: ISAF was under the command of Turkey, led by Major General Hilmi Akin Zorlu ; during this period, Turkish troops increased from about 100 to 1,300.
August 11, 2003 to February 9, 2004: ISAF was under the command of NATO, led by NATO Lieutenant General Goetz Gliemeroth , with Canadian Army Major General Andrew Leslie as his deputy. Canada had been originally slated to take over command of ISAF on August 11.
Canadian Lieutenant General Rick Hillier assumed command of this NATO force on February 9, 2004, his deputy is Major General Werner Korte of Germany. During this timeframe, Canada was the largest contributor to the ISAF force, contributing 2,000 men.
Between February and July 2002, Portugal sent a sanitary team and an air team to ISAF.
In November, 2002 ISAF, consisting of 4,650 troops from over 20 countries, was led by Turkey. Around 1,200 German troops were serving in the force alongside 250 Dutch soldiers operating as part of a German-led battalion.
In March, 2003 ISAF was comprised of 4,700 troops from 28 countries.
On June 7, 2003 in Kabul, a taxi packed with explosives rammed a bus carrying German ISAF personnel, killing four soldiers and wounding 29 others; one Afghan bystander was killed and 10 Afghan bystanders were wounded. The 33 peacekeepers, after months on duty in Kabul, were en route to the Kabul International Airport for their flight home to Germany. At the time, Germans soldiers made up more than 40% of ISAF.
A study by Care International in the summer of 2003 reported that Kosovo had one peacekeeper to 48 people, East Timor one for every 86, while Afghanistan has just one for every 5,380 people.
August, 2003, ISAF consisted of 5,000 troops from more than 30 countries. About 90% of the force were contributed by NATO countries. 1,950 were Canadian, by far the largest single contingent. However, other reports suggested that about 2,000 German troops were involved. Romania had about 400 troops at the time.
In September 2004, a Spanishbattalion (about 800 men) arrived to provide the ISAF Quick Reaction Force, and an Italian battalion (up to 1,000 troops) arrived to provide the in-theatre Operational Reserve Force. With a force of 100, Georgia became the first Commonwealth of Independent States country to send a peacekeeping mission to Afghanistan.
