Nearly 3,400 ISAF soldiers have been killed defending Mr Karzai's government from its enemies.
The textbook reveals absolutely nothing about the American forces or even about the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
At the very least, say officers, NATO will not again be caught by surprise when, as expected, the Taliban step up the fight in the spring.The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a NATO-led coalition of 37 countries, strolled almost casually into the heart of Taliban country as it deployed for the first time in the south and east of Afghanistan last summer.
NATO is headed for the perilous south.The advance will be co-ordinated by the alliance's expeditionary command headquarters, the British-run Allied Rapid Reaction Corps ARRCC), which is due in Kabul next April, for a nine-month stay running ISAF.
MORE than 13 years after NATO launched its invasion of Afghanistan following the attacks of September 11th, its International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) this week lowered the flag at its headquarters in Kabul, the capital.
The resurgent Taliban is betting that the countries sending troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) do not have the stamina for it.
The International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) has gone a long way to secure the streets of Kabul and restore confidence, but its mandate is limited to the immediate surroundings of the capital.
But it may have failed to convince them that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), comprising 6,500 mostly European peacekeepers, is capable of protecting them from the factional and terrorist violence raging in Afghanistan.
Success on both counts matters to the entire ISAF operation.
But once the Taliban and al-Qaeda were on the run, the administration paid mere lip service to building a stable Afghanistan.It fobbed off peacekeeping on to NATO and created an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) with a remit that at first did not go beyond Kabul, the capital.
