Tensions rise after Afghan soldier kills 4 French troops

By Nancy A. Youssef and Ali Safi

McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan

The killings of four French troops Friday by an Afghan soldier they were training has renewed concerns - a decade into the training mission - that Afghans are growing increasingly disdainful of the U.S.-led coalition forces ostensibly there to help them and are striking back.

The American military has conceded that troop deaths at the hands of Afghans have climbed in the past six months but has not released statistics. The Pentagon hasn't suggested any renewed security measures for U.S. troops training their Afghan counterparts, a cornerstone of the U.S. strategy to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by 2014.

"We're certainly concerned about these incidents, and officials are taking a look at it," Navy Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said Friday. "But we also don't believe that this is an endemic or systemic problem."

Coalition partners appear more concerned. The French suspended their mission in Afghanistan on Friday after the deaths of their soldiers and President Nicolas Sarkozy threatened to pull his nation's 4,000 troops out of the country altogether.

"I cannot accept that Afghan soldiers fire on French soldiers," Sarkozy said.

France's contingent is the fourth-largest in the coalition, after the United States, Great Britain and Germany.

"We are committed to continuing to work with the government of Afghanistan to resolve this very serious issue of individuals targeting our forces," said Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the coalition's commander.

According to Gen. Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, a man in an Afghan army uniform killed the four French soldiers and wounded 17 Friday afternoon in the middle of a joint fighting mission in eastern Afghanistan's Kapisa province. The attacker was killed, Azimi said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, as it often does in such instances, though it isn't always clear that the group has indeed infiltrated the Afghan security forces.

Regardless, such incidents suggest that the coalition's biggest problem might not be the Taliban, but rather a growing sense of distrust between coalition and Afghan forces.

A report last May that commanders in Afghanistan commissioned found that 6 percent of coalition deaths from May 2007 to May 2011 were at the hands of what were supposed to be friendly Afghan soldiers.