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KABUL, Afghanistan France suspended its training operations in Afghanistan and threatened to withdraw its entire force from the country early after an Afghan soldier shot and killed four French troops Friday and wounded 15 others.
The shooting the second such attack in a month came during a particularly deadly 24 hours for the international military coalition. Six U.S. Marines also died in a helicopter crash late Thursday.
It was the latest in a series of attacks by members of the Afghan security forces or infiltrators in disguise against coalition partners that have raised fears of increased Taliban infiltration of the Afghan police and army as foreign combat forces prepare to withdraw from the country by 2014. The impact of the French suspending training operations is unclear, but it would result in a major setback for the U.S.-led coalition if other troop-contributing nations stopped training Afghan national security forces or decided to pull out earlier than planned.
French officials said the Afghan soldier opened fire with an unspecified automatic weapon shortly after unarmed French soldiers had finished physical training exercises. French military spokesman Col. Thierry Burkhard said the soldier appeared to have had authorization to enter Forward Operating Base in Gwan in Tagab district of Kapisa province. Three quarters of the 600 soldiers on the base are Afghan and the rest are French, Burkhard said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the French deaths in Paris and the suspension of training programs. He did not specify how many French forces or which programs would be affected.
"The French army is in Afghanistan at the service of the Afghans against terrorism and against the Taliban. The French army is not in Afghanistan so that Afghan soldiers can shoot at them," Sarkozy said.
He added that if security for troops is not restored, "then the question of an early withdrawal of the French army would arise."
Defense Minister Gerard Longuet said the French soldiers were unarmed when the attacker opened fire during a very difficult training exercise at high altitude. French military officials said 15 other French soldiers were injured
"We don't know at the moment whether it's a Taliban member who infiltrated, or someone who decided (to attack) for reasons that we don't know," Longuet said on France-2 television.
He said the Afghan was in custody of the Afghan army's 3rd brigade, held by a general "whom we trust."
A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, praised the Afghan attacker but did not claim he was an infiltrator or provide other details.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai expressed deep regret over the attack.
Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the ministry had sent a delegation to the area to investigate the shooting, he said. He said the attacker was arrested and was being questioned.
Friday was among the most deadly days for French forces in the 10 years they have been serving in the international force in Afghanistan. The latest deaths bring to 82 the number of French troops killed in the Afghan campaign.
"From now on, all the operations of training and combat help by the French army are suspended," Sarkozy said.
The defense minister and the chief of staff of the French army are heading Friday to Kabul. Once they report back, Sarkozy said, the French government will decide how to proceed.
A big part of the French role in Afghanistan recently has been training Afghan troops and police ahead of an expected pullout of the around 3,600 French troops currently there in 2014.
Unpopular at home, Sarkozy is facing a potentially tough re-election campaign for elections in April and May and appeared determined Friday to act swiftly and sternly to the latest troop deaths.
The candidate who tops opinion polls ahead of France's elections, Socialist Francois Hollande, said in a statement Friday that he would aim to pull out French forces by the end of this year if he becomes president.
Friday's attack was all the more painful for the French because it came just weeks after an Afghan army soldier shot and killed two members of the French Foreign Legion serving in the NATO force on Dec. 29. French forces fired back and killed the assailant.
It remained unclear how likely or swift a French pullout could be. France has the fourth-largest force in the international coalition.
KABUL, Afghanistan American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report.
A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.
Underscoring the danger, a gunman in an Afghan Army uniform killed four French service members and wounded several others on Friday, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan, prompting the French president to suspend his countrys operations here.
The violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of American efforts to build a functional Afghan Army, a pillar of the Obama administrations strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and experts who helped shape the strategy.
The problems risk leaving the United States and its allies dependent on an Afghan force that is permeated by anti-Western sentiment and incapable of combating the Taliban and other militants when NATOs combat mission ends in 2014, they said.
One instance of the general level of antipathy in the war exploded into uncomfortable view last week when video emerged of American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Although American commanders quickly took action and condemned the act, chat-room and Facebook posts by Marines and their supporters were full of praise for the desecration.
But the most troubling fallout has been the mounting number of Westerners killed by their Afghan allies, events that have been routinely dismissed by American and NATO officials as isolated episodes that are the work of disturbed individual soldiers or Taliban infiltrators, and not indicative of a larger pattern. The unusually blunt report, which was prepared for a subordinate American command in eastern Afghanistan, takes a decidedly different view. The Wall Street Journal reported on details of the investigation last year. A copy was obtained by The New York Times.
Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between allies in modern military history), it said. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest, said the report, and it played down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.
The coalition refused to comment on the classified report. But incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis, said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings Jr. of the Army, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force. We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships.
The numbers appear to tell a different story. Although NATO does not release a complete tally of its forces deaths at the hands of Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified report and coalition news releases indicate that Afghan forces have attacked American and allied service members nearly three dozen times since 2007.
Two members of the French Foreign Legion and one American soldier were killed in separate episodes in the past month, according to statements by NATO. The classified report found that between May 2007 and May 2011, when it was completed, at least 58 Western service members were killed in 26 separate attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police nationwide. Most of those attacks have occurred since October 2009. This toll represented 6 percent of all hostile coalition deaths during that period, the report said.
They are training them to defend their countries against invaders, or what !
They are training them to defend their countries against invaders, or what !
They are supposed to be training these ungrateful clowns how to fight the insurgency against the Taliban without US and NATO forces holding their hands.
They are training them to defend their countries against invaders, or what !
They are supposed to be training these ungrateful clowns how to fight the insurgency against the Taliban without US and NATO forces holding their hands.
Somehow, I don't think the people of the various tribes of Afghanistan actually see Western intervention in their territory as a positive thing. In fact, I would think they view us as idiots for for having invaded their country and then trained them to fight back.
I don't know man, I just think we should throw a fence up all around that festering shit hole, padlock the gate, and put up an out of order sign. Then, run, not walk, away.
Every once in a while toss a tactical nuke or two in there to keep em guessing.
I'm at a cross roads here, I don't think going into Afghanistan was wrong because after 9/11 we HAD to retaliate, we couldn't just let those Al Qaeda training camps stay open and terrorists train to kill us with impunity, however this nation building adventure has turned out to be a very sad joke, we have wasted billions on this shit hole country and the Afghans want none of it, they are fine living in the stone ages in mud huts, fucking goats and reading their Qurans, I say we leave them to it.
I'm at a cross roads here, I don't think going into Afghanistan was wrong because after 9/11 we HAD to retaliate, we couldn't just let those Al Qaeda training camps stay open and terrorists train to kill us with impunity, however this nation building adventure has turned out to be a very sad joke, we have wasted billions on this shit hole country and the Afghans want none of it, they are fine living in the stone ages in mud huts, fucking goats and reading their Qurans, I say we leave them to it.
You know, not everyone needs--or wants--to live in the modern world. If these folks like goats and dressing their male children up like girls, so be it. If you have a retarded nephew, you don't chop his head off, you stick him in a corner and keep sharp objects out of reach. Give him a pillow to hump and some milk once in a while. Other than that just keep an eye on him and leave him be.
Afghanistan puts out some decent heroin, they make some dough. Leave 'em be. Besides, fucking with them is like getting into a slap fight with a spastic cactus.
10 years on heroin production is up from 185 tons a year to 5,800
Read more: Heroin production in Afghanistan has RISEN 61% | Mail Online
I'm at a cross roads here, I don't think going into Afghanistan was wrong because after 9/11 we HAD to retaliate, we couldn't just let those Al Qaeda training camps stay open and terrorists train to kill us with impunity, however this nation building adventure has turned out to be a very sad joke, we have wasted billions on this shit hole country and the Afghans want none of it, they are fine living in the stone ages in mud huts, fucking goats and reading their Qurans, I say we leave them to it.
You know, not everyone needs--or wants--to live in the modern world. If these folks like goats and dressing their male children up like girls, so be it. If you have a retarded nephew, you don't chop his head off, you stick him in a corner and keep sharp objects out of reach. Give him a pillow to hump and some milk once in a while. Other than that just keep an eye on him and leave him be.
Afghanistan puts out some decent heroin, they make some dough. Leave 'em be. Besides, fucking with them is like getting into a slap fight with a spastic cactus.
Yeah you have a point there, I just think its time to bring our men and women home, fuck that shit hole.
I'm at a cross roads here, I don't think going into Afghanistan was wrong because after 9/11 we HAD to retaliate, we couldn't just let those Al Qaeda training camps stay open and terrorists train to kill us with impunity, however this nation building adventure has turned out to be a very sad joke, we have wasted billions on this shit hole country and the Afghans want none of it, they are fine living in the stone ages in mud huts, fucking goats and reading their Qurans, I say we leave them to it.
You know, not everyone needs--or wants--to live in the modern world. If these folks like goats and dressing their male children up like girls, so be it. If you have a retarded nephew, you don't chop his head off, you stick him in a corner and keep sharp objects out of reach. Give him a pillow to hump and some milk once in a while. Other than that just keep an eye on him and leave him be.
Afghanistan puts out some decent heroin, they make some dough. Leave 'em be. Besides, fucking with them is like getting into a slap fight with a spastic cactus.
Yeah you have a point there, I just think its time to bring our men and women home, fuck that shit hole.
