Jurisdiction
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 reconstituted Afghan armed forces. However, on 13 October 2003, the Security Council voted unanimously to expand the ISAF mission beyond Kabul in Resolution 1510. Shortly thereafter, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said that Canadian soldiers (nearly half of the entire force at that time) would not deploy outside Kabul.
On 24 October 2003, the German Bundestag voted to send German troops to the region of Kunduz. Approximately 230 additional soldiers were deployed to that region, marking the first time that ISAF soldiers operated outside of Kabul. After the 2005 Afghan parliamentary election, the Canadian base Camp Julien at Kabul closed, and remaining Canadian assets moved to Kandahar as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in preparation for a significant deployment in January 2006. On 31 July 2006, the NATO‑led International Security Assistance Force assumed command of the south of the country, ISAF Stage 3, and by 5 October also of the east of Afghanistan, ISAF Stage 9.
ISAF is mandated by the UN Security Council Resolutions 1386, 1413, 1444, 1510, 1563, 1623, S/RES/1659, S/RES/1707, S/RES/1776(2007) (with an abstention from Russia due to the lack of clarity in the wording pertaining to ISAF's maritime interception component, which has not appeared in any of the Security Council's previous resolutions.) and Resolution 1917 (2010). The last of these extended the mandate of ISAF to 23 March 2011.
The mandates the different governments give to their forces differ from country to country. Some governments wish to take a full part in counter-insurgency operations; some are in Afghanistan for NATO alliance reasons; some are in the country partially because they wish to maintain their relationship with the United States, and possibly, some are there for domestic political reasons. This means that ISAF suffers from a certain lack of united aims.
Read more about this topic: International Security Assistance Force
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