Killing of French Soldiers Continues a Tragic Trend in Afghanistan

Another attack by an Afghan service member has killed four French troops and wounded 16.

Reuters photo

This brings my admittedly informal tally of the grim toll to 52 Western personnel killed by Afghan security forces in the past 26 months since the November 2009 attack by an Afghan policeman that killed five British troops inside the wire.

That November 2009 atrocity has served as a baseline in my attempt to track this grim toll at my blog and in my column over the past two years. Looking back, however, I find that on October 3, 2009, two Americans were killed and two others wounded as they slept by an Afghan Army soldier on duty.

To the best of my calculations, then, that makes 54 infidels murdered by Muslim “allies” in Afghanistan in the past 27 months.

This figure is almost certainly low, not only because I have undoubtedly missed reports, but it’s also quite likely that other incidents, particularly in action, have gone undetected, unreported. The total also doesn’t take into account non-fatal incidents, such as the September 2009 attack on an American soldier for drinking water during Ramadan by an Afghan policeman in Kabul. The American was “only” seriously wounded.

Congress should order an official reckoning of these casualties of jihad.

Today’s attack on the French is different from all of the others in that it has elicited a healthy reflex in the French: the survival reflex.

From the AFP report:

French troops had surrounded their base in Kapisa and were not allowing any Afghan soldiers to approach, a security source told AFP.

The AP reports:

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday that France is suspending its training programs for Afghan troops after the killings, which he announced in a speech after the U.S-led coalition said an Afghan soldier shot and killed four NATO troops.

Sarkozy said it was “unacceptable” that Afghan troops would attack French soldiers. He said French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe is heading to Afghanistan after the attack, which is among the most deadly for French forces in the 10 years they have been serving in the NATO-led international force in Afghanistan.