Al Jazeera filmed with French troops patrolling the Sorubi district which lies south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Our correspondent Hamish Macdonald reports.
You always expect to be woken up early and rudely when travelling with one of the foreign military deployments in Afghanistan, but would a trip with the French 1st Infantry prove to be different?
Yes, it seems. They do things differently to the Americans. They get woken up to classical music.
It is 4am in Sorubi district south of Kabul, where we have come to spend some time on patrol with the French forces. As the classical notes play out in the pre-dawn darkness, Captain Bruno, one of the few French soldiers who speaks English, says: "We have, you know, the French touch. We are not like the Americans."
That is true enough, but it is also one of the reasons France and other European members of Nato have been accused of failing to pull their weight in Afghanistan.
Their deployments are much smaller and they tend to remain primarily in safer parts of the country, refusing to serve in the troubled southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
We join the patrol with the French battalion as day begins to break and their tanks and personnel carriers roll out beyond the razor-wire fence of their base into the splintering cold of the Afghan morning.
Inside the vehicles, the soldiers sit cramped and confined, with tiny and obscured views of the outside world – it is, for them, a rare glimpse of an unfamiliar and unforgiving land.
On this patrol they forge new ground, arriving in villages where foreign soldiers are not regular visitors.
Ambush alert
After driving for a few hours we finally get out of the vehicles to greet the daylight. Suddenly there is a warning call. Suspicious movement in the nearby village puts the patrol on alert. The men disperse, to observe and take-up defensive positions.
Ever since an attack in August last year which killed 10 French soldiers here, the prospect of ambush has remained a constant threat.
More:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/03/2009331103924521272.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
