Fighting alongside US troops since 2001, the French military deployment in Afghanistan reached 3,750 soldiers in 2009. FRANCE 24 takes a closer look at where French troops are and what they are doing across this troubled country.
Three US special forces members were killed by an Afghan police commander and several of his officers after being invited to dinner on Thursday. It is not clear if the assailants were rogue officers or insurgents infiltrating the police ranks.
Cyril Vanier talks to Sarah Daniel, an international war correspondent who has spent the last 10 years writing about the world’s major conflicts for the French weekly, Le Nouvel Observateur. Her book recounts a decade of war reporting from the frontline, which began in Afghanistan in 2001. Daniel speaks about losing colleagues on the battlefield, gaining access to notorious Taliban and al Qaeda members, and also of her regrets.
A French soldier was killed and another was wounded during a joint operation with the Afghan army in Kapisa province, the French government confirmed on Tuesday. The number of French soldiers killed in Afghanistan since 2001 now stands at 88.
Afghan lawmakers voted Saturday to dismiss the defence and interior ministers Abdul Rahim Wardak and Bismillah Khan Mohammadi over the country's perceived weak response to cross-border attacks from Pakistan.
The French army handed one of their bases back to Afghan troops on Tuesday, as part of French President François Hollande’s early withdrawal plan to send 2,000 combat soldiers home by year end.
Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary, Jalil Abbas Jilani, talks to Annette Young and defends his government over attacks that it plays both sides of the game when it comes to Afghanistan. He argues that despite a rocky relationship with the US, the relationship is back on track despite ongoing American anger that the country is increasingly acting in bad faith.
A suicide bombing at the compound of a prominent anti-Taliban commander in north-western Pakistan killed at least nine people Saturday. Meanwhile, at a checkpoint in the south-western Baluchistan province, gunmen killed at least seven soldiers.
A pre-dawn Taliban attack on Wednesday set 22 fuel tankers aflame in the northern province of Samangan, local officials said. The trucks were carrying supplies from Uzbekistan to NATO forces in southern Afghanistan.
An Afghan soldier was sentenced to death Monday for fatally shooting five French NATO soldiers in a January 20 attack in Kapisa province. The incident prompted France to speed up the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan.
