The French in Afghanistan

[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

[bourbon]

French troops were killed after Italy hushed up ‘bribes’ to Taleban, by Tom Coghlan. The Times (London), October 15, 2009.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

US intelligence officials were flabbergasted when they found out through intercepted telephone conversations that the Italians had also been buying off militants, notably in Herat province in the far west. In June 2008, several weeks before the ambush, the US Ambassador in Rome made a démarche, or diplomatic protest, to the Berlusconi Government over allegations concerning the tactic.

However, a number of high-ranking officers in Nato have told The Times that payments were subsequently discovered to have been made in the Sarobi area as well.

Western officials say that because the French knew nothing of the payments they made a catastrophically incorrect threat assessment.

[kotkinjs1]

Here's the same story from today's Foreign Policy:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/...ff_the_taliban

Did Italy pay off the Taliban?

But the larger question is: why is this so damming? Isn't this now part of our strategic calculus to consider paying off those same Taliban when necessary to achieve our larger withdrawal aims?

[Entropy]

But the larger question is: why is this so damming? Isn't this now part of our strategic calculus to consider paying off those same Taliban when necessary to achieve our larger withdrawal aims?

It's damning when you don't tell your relieving force who you've been paying and why, assuming this story is true.

[kotkinjs1]

right - I understand that; it is pretty sh!tty that this little gem was left out in the turnover brief. I was only referring to the payoffs. The article focuses on the payments to militants to maintain the peace:

"US intelligence officials were flabbergasted when they found out through intercepted telephone conversations that the Italians had also been buying off militants, notably in Herat province in the far west."

Is cutting a deal with militant tribes or even factions of the Taliban so horrible? This article paints it out to be.