RFI - Sarkozy vows French will stay after attack

Sarkozy vows French will stay after attack

Article published on the 2008-08-19 Latest update 2008-08-20 17:17 TU

French troops in Afghanistan, August 2008.
(Photo: AFP)

President Nicolas Sarkozy has arrived in Afghanistan a day after one of the deadliest attacks on France's forces abroad. Ten French soldiers were killed and 21 injured in an ambush by Taliban fighters east of the capital, Kabul. It's the largest loss in a single attack for foreign troops in Afghanistan since the Taliban were ousted in 2001.

"I came to tell you that the work that you are doing here is essential," Sarkozy told French troops at their base at Camp Warehouse near Kabul.

"I have no doubt that we must be here. I am also in shock … but I tell you in good conscience that if we had to do it again, I would do it again," he said, according to the French news agency AFP.

"Not the patrol and the sequence of events, but the choice which led me to confirm the decision of my predecessors to send the French army here."

He visited a morgue where the ten bodies were held before being repatriated, and spoke to survivors of the fighting.

A patrol of French and Afghan soldiers were ambushed by Taliban late Monday, and engaged in a three-hour gun battle, a district chief in Sarobi said. 13 militants were killed, the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) says.

France recently boosted its troop presence in Afghanistan, as promised by French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this year, and the contingent should number 3,000 soldiers by the end of August. Less than two weeks ago, France took command of the ISAF force in and around Kabul.

After arriving in Kabul on Tuesday evening, Sarkozy assured French troops of France's support for them. He said that "in its struggle against terrorism, France has just been hit hard."

Monday's loss of the French soldiers is the largest in a single attack on international soldiers in Afghanistan since 16 US troops were killed in Kunar province after their helicopter was shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade.