AFGHANISTAN: French Defence ministry confirms that France will begin pulling its troops out of Afghanistan

France plans to pull a contingent of 200 special forces out of Afghanistan at the start of 2007, the French defence ministry said on Monday (December 18) at a news conference in Kabul after meeting Afghan president Hamid Karzai. "I would like to inform you that we are going to withdraw our special forces in Jalalabad and of the reinforcement of our units that provide training to the Afghani army, in order to create the Afghani special forces," French defence ministry Michele Alliot-Marie, said. The troops were first deployed in 2003 to bolster Operation Enduring Freedom, a U.S.-led military campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda launched in response to the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The French troops are separate from the main 32,000-strong NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, which took over command of the war against the Taliban from U.S.-led forces in October and which has launched a series of offensives. Some 1,100 French troops will remain in the region of Kabul as part of the ISAF, a defence ministry spokesman said but others will be deployed in those areas where their presence will be required. "We also foresee that our forces currently stationed in Kabul will be relocated to other regions (in Afghanistan) according to the needs of our allies, to help in those situations where their presence will be necessary," French Defence Ministry Michele Alliot-Marie added during the press conference. Ten French troops have been killed since the conflict in Afghanistan started in October 2001. The majority belonged to the special forces team operating near the Afghan-Pakistani border.

ITN Source | December 18, 2006

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