Deadly attack as French gen meets Afghans
Afghan insurgents fired a pair of rockets into a crowded marketplace as a French general met local leaders nearby yesterday, killing 10 civilians, Afghan and French officials said.
A total of 28 other Afghan civilians were wounded in the attack in Tagab district, Kapisa province, just northeast of Kabul, deputy provincial police chief Abdul Hamid Hakimi told AFP.
"The enemy fired two rockets on the main bazaar in Tagab. Ten people, all civilians, were killed and 28 others were wounded," he said.
The bloody attack came as France's parliament was due to debate the mission in Afghanistan, amid mounting domestic political concern over a war opposed by a majority of French voters.
The attack occurred while General Marcel Druart, the commander of French troops in eastern Afghanistan, attended a "shura" of tribal elders 300 metres (yards) away.
"French and American medical teams with helicopters evacuated six of the wounded to military hospitals in Kabul, while armoured vehicles took others to the French base in Tagab," French spokesman Admiral Christophe Prazuck told reporters in Paris.
Prazuck said that "three or four Afghans, including children" were killed outright, but that no French troops were hurt. Ten of the wounded Afghans were in a serious condition, he added.
Druart was attending the meeting as part of NATO's attempts to win the trust and support of local civilians in an area just 60 kilometres (38 miles) northeast of Kabul with a strong Taliban insurgent presence.
"A security cordon has been put in place by French forces based in Kapisa province, including Gazelle reconnaissance helicopters and Tiger helicopter gunships," Prazuck said.
France has the fourth largest contingent in the NATO force battling against the Taliban in Afghanistan, with 3,750 personnel assigned to the mission, of which 3,400 are based in Afghanistan itself.
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