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Macedonian ISAF soldiers on patrol on Bibi Mehro Hill. Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul, Afghanistan. 29 November 2006. ..The hill is also known as “Swimming Pool Hill” after the pool built by the Soviets, later used by the Taliban as an execution ground...Established in December 2001 by UN Security Council resolution 1368 for the primary purpose of training the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and enabling Afghanistan to rebuild key government institutions, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was soon obliged to expand its mission to secure Kabul and its hinterland from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda beyond the capital and to engage in combat operations to both the south and east. ..Some of the ISAF countries that contributed to “Operation Enduring Freedom-Afghanistan” had to act subject to national caveats, meaning that trainers could not be deployed throughout the country. ..By 2008 at the latest it had become evident that the NATO coalition's military presence, consisting of troops from 41 countries, was not the solution but part of the problem. Even stranger than the fact that NATO—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization established as part of the post-WWII world order in 1949—was supposedly defending itself in a faraway landlocked country was the involvement in its campaign of nations like El Salvador on the Pacific and Singapore on the shores of the South China Sea. ..ISAF was disbanded in 2014, contributing only some advisory troops to the successor organization, Resolute Support Mission.. (KEYSTONE/VII Photo/Daniel Schwartz)