Afghanistan: Sarkozy Fends Off Critics With Visit to French Troops in Kabul

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, paid a quick visit to Afghanistan yesterday to reassure French troops following the deaths of 10 soldiers in a Taliban ambush close to the capital, Kabul, earlier this week.

The losses were the worst suffered by the French army in 25 years and the most serious suffered in a single incident by international forces in Afghanistan since 2002. The presidential visit, aimed at reassuring the 2,600 French soldiers deployed in the country as well as shaky domestic public opinion and Nato allies, was carried out at Sarkozy's usual rapid pace.

The French premier stood for some time before the coffins of the dead men in a military chapel in Kabul and visited some of the 21 soldiers wounded in the 36-hour running battle, which took place about 30 miles east of the city on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. Eleven of the most seriously injured men were flown to France yesterday.

The fight is believed to have started after French troops on a reconnaissance patrol were ambushed by a force of around 100 militants as they approached a ridge line in a mountainous, rural district north of the town of Sorobi.

A fierce battle developed as air strikes and reinforcements from the Afghan National Army failed to force back the insurgents. According to the French defence minister, Hervé Morin, who accompanied Sarkozy to Afghanistan, around 30 Taliban militants were killed and 30 wounded in the clash. No independent confirmation was available.

"The Taliban caught us by surprise in an ambush that was extremely well prepared. Our men were not in a position to respond and fell in the first minutes," Morin told reporters in Kabul. Some reports spoke of casualties from "friendly fire".

The French daily newspaper Le Monde quoted an unidentified French soldier, wounded in the ambush, who said there had been long delays in relieving the outnumbered patrol and that some soldiers had been hit by their own air support.

Flags flew at half mast in the south-western town of Castres, where the 8th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, the unit in which most of the killed and wounded served, is based.

Calls for a pullout have so far come only from the extremes of the political spectrum - the Communist party and the leader of the far-right National Front, Jean-Marie Le Pen. In recent months violence has moved inexorably closer to the capital with a series of attacks on convoys, ambushes and shootings of government officials and humanitarian workers in recent weeks. This week's engagement was the first major clash within the borders of Kabul province.

Sorobi has long had a bad reputation. A stronghold of fighters loyal to the hardline Hizb-e-Islami group led by veteran warlord and Taliban ally Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, it has become increasingly problematic in recent months. Taliban leaders have made no secret of their aim to "throttle" Kabul. Currently, only the road leading north from the capital remains safe.

Sarkozy said he had no regrets about sending more troops to Afghanistan earlier this year, a decision which was deeply controversial in France. The news of the deaths provoked uproar at home with Socialist opposition politicians calling for a "review" of the French presence in the country, though they stopped short of demanding withdrawal. In Kabul, Sarkozy said French troops were in Afghanistan to "play a part in the freedom of the world" and "because it was here that the fight for terrorism is being fought".

During his five-hour trip to the country, Sarkozy also met the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who said he was "tremendously saddened and shaken" by the deaths. The Afghan leader told reporters that the recent rise in violence in Afghanistan was due to the lack of attention paid to the militants' sanctuaries, a clear reference to Pakistan's tribal area.

In further fighting yesterday, 19 Taliban fighters were reported to have been killed in two separate clashes in the eastern provinces of Khost and Paktia, while a coalition soldier was killed by militants while on patrol in the west of the country.