The French in Afghanistan

[Ken White]

so it's perhaps pretty accurate. Given 2d REP and the 8th RPIMa plus the Chadian; US SF and Afghans, I guess C3 problems were virtually guaranteed and ANA reinforcements firing up everyone seems to be par for the course. CAS close is always dicey. Surprised that with vehicles, they ran out of MG Ammo, though.

[davidbfpo]

The BBC news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7572612.stm and by a defence commentator: http://defenceoftherealm.blogspot.com/

Note the emphasis on the French public not supporting the deployment; once again an example of the political failure to explain why.

Rest in peace mon ami.

davidbfpo

[davidbfpo]

Not me, but from the Kings College London War Studies Kings of War blogsite: http://kingsofwar.wordpress.com/2008...-how/#comments

Very pithy comments on the ambush and the Taliban threat (in a moment will post to a Taliban thread too).

davidbfpo

[Entropy]

More here.

New information surfaced Wednesday on the death on August 18 of 10 French soldiers who, while on a reconnaissance mission in Eastern Afghanistan, were ambushed by Taliban insurgents. French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, reputed for its investigative reporting and political scoops, suggested that the French patrol may have been betrayed by their Afghan interpreter. 'A few hours before the soldiers departed on their mission on August 18, the interpreter who was supposed to accompany the small patrol disappeared,' said an article on Wednesday [27 August 2008] in Le Canard Enchaîné. According to FRANCE 24 sources, this version of the facts was given to journalists by soldiers who had participated in the mission while they were being treated at the French military hospital in Kabul. According to the newspaper, French officials speaking anonymously admitted that the insurgents knew about the French patrol’s mission 'through the missing interpreter, or through Afghan police or soldiers.

[kaur]

Mass Attack on French Paratroopers Heralds New Taliban Tactics

French press interviews with survivors of the ambush describe a rapid breakdown in command and communications, with Taliban marksmen taking down French soldiers at will. Among the first to be killed were the deputy section leader and the radioman of the advance unit. The warrant officer in command was shot in the shoulder. Soon afterwards the paratroopers’ radio communication with the RMT broke down. Heavily outnumbered, the French remained pinned down and under fire from small arms, machine guns and rocket launchers for four hours without reinforcements. Ammunition for all weapons other than their assault rifles ran out as the soldiers were unable to reach supplies still in their vehicles, although a VAB with a section from the 35e Régiment d'Artillerie Parachutiste in the rear of the column was able to deploy the vehicle’s machine gun and four 120mm mortars in support (La Depeche, August 21).

http://www.jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=346#

[Rex Brynen]

French soldiers unprepared for Taliban ambush: report

A secret NATO review obtained by The Globe and Mail shows that the French who were killed in August did not have enough bullets, radios and other equipment. By contrast, the insurgents were dangerously well prepared


GRAEME SMITH
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
September 20, 2008 at 1:11 AM EDT

It was mid-afternoon when a tribal elder invited a U.S. military commander for a quiet chat in a garden. His village was surrounded by foreign troops, hunting around the mountain valley in search of infiltrators from Pakistan rumoured to be lurking in the barren hills.

Thirty soldiers from a French airborne platoon wandered farthest from the village, exploring a steep slope covered with rocks and scrubby vegetation under a high ridge.

That hill would soon become a killing ground, scene of the deadliest ambush against international forces since 2001, and the latest troubling sign that the insurgents are mastering the art of guerrilla war.

A NATO report on the incident obtained by The Globe and Mail provides the most in-depth account so far of an attack on Aug. 18 that shook the countries involved in the increasingly bloody campaign. The NATO report, marked “secret,” reveals woefully unprepared French troops surprised by well-armed insurgents in a valley east of Kabul. Ten soldiers were killed, the report concludes, but the other soldiers were lucky to escape without more deaths.

[AdamG]

"There was no Nato report," said a French army spokesman, saying such information was based on "rumours" possibly fed by "partial" accounts from soldiers questioned after the attack. He denied that the troops ran out of ammunition quickly and said that radio reception was only lost for a few minutes.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...ghanistan.html