FRANCE HAS threatened to accelerate its withdrawal from the Nato-led force in Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier shot dead four unarmed French troops and injured about 15 others during a training exercise.
President Nicolas Sarkozy said all French operations on the ground were being suspended, and his defence minister, Gérard Longuet, was dispatched to clarify the situation in Afghanistan.
“If the security conditions are not clearly established then the question of an early return of French forces from Afghanistan will arise,” Mr Sarkozy said.
France has almost 4,000 troops in Afghanistan as part of the 130,000-strong Nato-led force there. French troops mainly patrol Kapisa, an often restive province in mountains near Kabul. They are due to leave by the end of 2013.
“The French army stands alongside its allies, but we cannot accept that a single one of our soldiers be wounded or killed by our allies. It’s unacceptable,” Mr Sarkozy said.
The incident occurred in the Tagab district, in Kapisa province, as the soldiers were finishing a sports training session with their Afghan counterparts. Mr Longuet said the victims were unarmed when they were shot by a man in an Afghan military uniform.
Nato has been rapidly expanding the size of the Afghan security forces so that they will be able to take over all responsibility for security when western forces leave in 2014. Previous incidents in which western troops were killed by Afghan colleagues have been blamed either on Taliban infiltration of the Afghan military, or on stress, indiscipline and divided loyalties within the hastily trained Afghan ranks.
Foreign minister Alain Juppé said France would await a report from Mr Longuet and its military chief of staff, Admiral Édouard Guillaud, on their return from Afghanistan before taking any decision on an early pull-out.
If that report concluded that assurances about the security of French troops were not credible, “we will draw the conclusions . . . including the acceleration of a complete withdrawal of our contingent, set for the end of 2013,” Mr Juppé said.
Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who is due in Paris on January 27th to sign a co-operation treaty, expressed his “deep sadness and condolences to the families of the victims”.
Training Afghan forces is the core of the French mission within the Nato-led coalition in Afghanistan, the force having already scaled down its own operations.
The latest deaths bring to 82 the number of French soldiers who have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001.
Two French foreign legionnaires and one American were killed in separate episodes of so-called “green-on-blue” shootings – which refer to the colours of the Afghan army and the symbol of Nato – last month.
The coalition no longer releases the number of its troops killed by Afghan soldiers.
Mr Sarkozy may be tempted to announce an early withdrawal for domestic reasons, three months ahead of a presidential election. An opinion poll in May showed more than half of French voters back withdrawal.
Mr Sarkozy’s Socialist rival, François Hollande, has pledged to pull out by the end of this year if he wins power.