Paris, Suara Indonesia News - President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Tuesday that France will not abandon the international mission in Afghanistan despite 10 French troops being killed and 21 wounded in a Taliban ambush.
Sarkozy left for Afghanistan late Tuesday after the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops in Afghanistan since the US-led war in 2001 that ousted the Taliban.
"In its struggle against terrorism, France has just been hard hit," said Sarkozy in a statement before flying out on a trip accompanied by Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and Defence Minister Herve Morin.
The president said he was travelling to Kabul to reassure the 3,000 French troops serving in the NATO force of more than 40,000 that "France is at their side."
Offering condolences to the soldiers' families, Sarkozy said France would not be deterred from its Afghan mission."My determination is intact. France is committed to pursuing the struggle against terrorism, for democracy and for freedom.
"This is a just cause, it is an honour for France and for its army to defend it," he told AFP.
The 10 soldiers were killed during fighting on Monday and Tuesday following the ambush on a joint NATO reconnaissance mission with the Afghan national army in Sarobi district, 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Kabul.
Twenty four French troops have now been killed in action or in accidents in Afghanistan since they first arrived in 2002.
It was the deadliest attack on French troops since a 1983 assault in Beirut in which 58 French paratroopers serving in a UN force were killed.(RED)
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