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FRANCE PLAYS DOWN TALIBAN CAPTURE OF ANTI-TANK MISSILES
Agence France-Presse via the Toqueville Connection, 24 Oct 08
Article link France played down Friday the capture by Taliban forces of two French anti-tank missiles seized after the insurgents launched a major attack on hundreds of its troops in Afghanistan.
Defence Minister Herve Morin said Western forces in Afghanistan sometimes had to abandon weapons in the field and that the main concern had been to get the troops out of last Saturday's ambush alive.
"It was an ambush in a narrow valley, with a lot of Taliban," said Morin as he visited an army unit in the eastern town of Annecy that was about to send some of its soldiers to Afghanistan.
"The essential thing is that everyone is alive," he said, adding that
the Milan anti-tank missiles abandoned would be difficult to use for anyone without the proper training.
Fourteen Taliban were killed in the clash, according to NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
The ambush took place in the Alasai valley north of the capital Kabul, near where 10 French soldiers were killed in another Taliban ambush in mid-August.
But the French army waited until Thursday to publicly announce the incident.
It said that around 300 French troops were attacked by about 100 Taliban and had to retreat after fierce fighting.
Air cover was called in to help them get out of the ambush, said Lieutenant Colonel Bruno Louisfert, a French army spokesman in Afghanistan.
He said a missile launcher was also abandoned along with the two Milan portable medium-range guided missiles.
About 70,000 international troops -- 40,000 of them under NATO command -- are helping Afghans fight the Taliban who were ousted from Kabul in a US-led invasion launched after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
France has around 2,600 troops there.