French soldiers, Taliban die in Afghan fighting

By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) – Two French soldiers have been killed in
an ambush in Afghanistan, the French Defense Ministry said on
Saturday, the latest casualties in the bloodiest stretch of
violence since the Taliban were overthrown five years ago.

A ministry official said the soldiers were on patrol with
special forces on Friday when a bomb exploded and “extremists”
opened fire with light weapons in an ambush 38 km (24 miles)
from Mihtarlam, capital of the eastern province of Laghman.

Two other French soldiers were wounded but were in stable
condition. Foreign forces said they killed 22 rebels in air and
artillery strikes on Friday in the south, where the Taliban
resurgence is at its strongest.

Afghanistan is going through its bloodiest phase since
U.S.-led troops drove the Taliban from power after the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

About 2,000 people, most of them militants but also
including civilians, Afghan troops, aid workers and more than
90 foreign soldiers, have been killed in fighting this year.

VIOLENT MIX

The violence is a mix of opposition to foreign and
government forces, tribal wars, the illegal drugs trade and
crime.

The insurgency is concentrated in the south and east,
mostly in provinces bordering Pakistan, the Taliban’s former
backer.

On Friday, U.S.-led coalition forces killed 15 Taliban,
including a commander, in an air strike in Uruzgan province in
the south, the U.S. military said in a statement.

A plain-clothes Afghan policeman was shot dead and four
others wounded on Saturday when NATO troops fired on their
unmarked truck at a checkpoint near the southern city of
Kandahar. Police and NATO are investigating, the alliance said.

And NATO forces also killed seven rebels in an artillery
strike in the southern province of Helmand on Friday.

The Taliban could not be contacted for immediate comment.

Dutch Prime Minister Yan-Peter Balkenede visited his troops
in Uruzgan and later called for more international pressure to
halt the flow of militants across the porous border.

“The situation in Uruzgan is linked to people coming from
Pakistan, it is true,” he told a news conference in Kabul. “If
these issues are not … solved, then indeed, you have a
serious problem.”

Pakistan has massed about 80,000 soldiers along the border
and taken heavy casualties fighting militants and hunting
Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

But Afghanistan has accused it of doing too little and, in
some cases, still actively helping its former allies.

In his successful parliamentary renomination hearing,
Afghan intelligence chief Amruallah Saleh said Islamabad “has
not given up its interference and aggression” and that the
enemy’s training camps and organisational and financial
networks lay in Pakistan.

But the U.S. general in charge of the Middle East,
including Iraq and Afghanistan, said that while Taliban and
other militants, drug traders and criminals were using Pakistan
as a safe haven, Islamabad no longer supported its former
protege.

“There is always this notion there is collusion on the part
of the Pakistan government,” John Abizaid told reporters at
Bagram airbase outside Kabul on the eve of a visit to Pakistan.

“And I absolutely don’t believe that. My experience with
the Pakistani military has been that they are committed. My
experience with President (Pervez) Musharraf is that he is
committed.”

(Additional reporting by Paris bureau and Terry Friel in
BAGRAM)