Ten French Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan As Taliban Attacks Grow More Audacious

Ten French soldiers have been killed and 21 wounded after a Taliban ambush 40 miles east of the Afghan capital, Kabul. According to Afghan officials, four of the soldiers were executed after being captured or "kidnapped" during a two-day running battle with more than 100 insurgents.

President Nicolas Sarkozy was due to arrive in Afghanistan this morning to show troops that "France was by their sides". The casualties were mostly from France's 8th parachute regiment, recently arrived as part of a controversial reinforcement of the French presence in Afghanistan ordered by Sarkozy earlier this year.

Elsewhere, a team of suicide bombers attempted to storm American and Afghan national army (ANA) bases near the eastern city of Khost, the second major assault on the positions in 24 hours.

In the past three days, more than 100 people have died during fighting and bombings around the country. "We had an OK winter and a good spring but we are having a tough summer," said one official from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan.

The French casualties appear to have come after a joint Isaf and Afghan army patrol was ambushed on Monday afternoon in the Spir Kundi district of Kabul province, 20 miles north-east of the town of Sorobi, a strategic bottleneck on the crucial road linking the capital to the city of Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border.

Fighting continued overnight and into yesterday morning, though local officials said that the clash was over by early afternoon. Abdul Wahed, a provincial councilor from Sorobi, said the fighting yesterday had lasted three or four hours.

The French force was backed up by air strikes and Afghan army troops. Afghan officials said that three Afghan soldiers had been injured and dozens of Taliban militants killed. "Recently Isaf and ANA [forces were] deployed into the area and started going on patrol. This was their third patrol and it came under attack yesterday afternoon and it lasted several hours. There were [coalition] air bombardments but it is an uninhabited area so we have no reports of civilian casualties," Qazi Suleiman, the Spir Kundi chief, said.

The deaths will cause uproar in France. Sarkozy has taken French foreign policy in a more pro-Washington direction than his predecessor Jacques Chirac and has stressed France's commitment to the military and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. European nations have been under increasing pressure from the US to contribute more combat troops to contain the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

Since 2002, the French have contributed 1,000 men to the Isaf force patrolling Kabul but the new troops were the first to be committed to combat operations, other than small detachments of special forces.

The deployment was originally planned for south Afghanistan where fighting has been fiercest. Before this latest incident, 14 French soldiers had been killed since their initial deployment. Overall, 176 foreign soldiers have been killed this year.

Accounts of the Khost incident differ. However, Arsala Jamal, the governor of Khost province, said 10 suicide bombers had been killed along with an Afghan army soldier. Jamal described a complex and ambitious operation involving two waves of attacks late on Monday night and again yesterday morning with teams of bombers backed by conventional fighters.

"Militarily this was very stupid," he said. "The Taliban wanted to show off to the world with a spectacular strike."

Kabul has seen a huge security operation in recent days aimed at preventing an attack on yesterday's Afghanistan independence day. But the problem merely seems to have been displaced. The plateaux and valleys to the north and east of Kabul have become increasingly problematic in recent months with growing numbers of attacks on convoys on the road to Jalalabad. In one incident last week near Sorobi, insurgents stopped traffic on the road and torched coalition fuel tankers.

The lightly armed Taliban have often suffered heavy casualties whenever they have risked a formal engagement with western troops. But a Taliban spokesman yesterday claimed that the insurgents had inflicted "heavy losses" on such troops.

"This morning we ambushed Nato troops in Sorobi district using mines and rockets. We destroyed five vehicles," Zabihullah Mujahed told the AFP agency.

Taliban spokesmen routinely exaggerate numbers or fabricate claims of civilian casualties. But the loss of the French troops will hand a major propaganda victory to the insurgents as will the proximity of their attack to the capital. The engagement is the first major clash to take place within Kabul province. Last week an attack on aid workers in Logar province and strikes on convoys in Wardak province, south of the capital, revealed the growing presence the Taliban has been able to establish in areas previously considered under Afghan government control.

'We are resolved to fight terror'

Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday insisted France remained committed to its military presence in Afghanistan as opposition figures condemned a deployment which saw the French army suffering its heaviest losses in 25 years.

Paying tribute to the 10 men who died in yesterday's ambush, President Sarkozy said that, while France had been "hit hard" by the attack, his determination for French troops to remain part of the Nato force in Afghanistan was "intact".

"France is resolved to fight terror for democracy and for freedom," he said, announcing his intention to fly to Kabul last night. "The cause is just and it is the honor of France and of her military to defend it."

But the deaths - the biggest loss of life suffered by the French army since a bombing in Lebanon in 1983 - were used as an example by the opposition Socialist party to highlight the need for a national debate. "What are the aims of this war? How many troops must there be to reach its stated objectives?" said a statement from the party leader, François Hollande.

The French government faced its first vote of no-confidence earlier this year when Sarkozy's move to send hundreds of extra troops to Afghanistan was greeted with dismay by the opposition and members of his own right-wing UMP.

Opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of the population opposes military engagement in the country and yesterday political websites were flooded with angry comments from Sarkozy's critics.

"There are families suffering who must be cursing Sarko for having sent young guys out there to act the big guy in front of his friend Bush," read one comment on Le Monde's political blog. "Without Sarkozy's political choice these men would still be with us," said another on Le Figaro's website.