Last year 10 French soldiers were killed and mutilated by taliban terrorist scum. A couple of months before the French troops arrived, the area was controlled by Italian forces. What the French didn't know was that Italy's secret service was paying 10s of thousands of dollars to the taliban to keep the area quiet. This led the French to grossly underestimated the threat.
The French only went in with 60 men, no air support, no artillery support and no heavy weapons. So when the French were attacked by 170 taliban terrorist, they were unprepared for the attack.
From Times Online
When ten French soldiers were killed last year in an ambush by Afghan insurgents in what had seemed a relatively peaceful area, the French public were horrified.[...]
What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.
US intelligence officials were flabbergasted when they found out through intercepted telephone conversations that the Italians had also been buying off militants, notably in Herat province in the far west. In June 2008, several weeks before the ambush, the US Ambassador in Rome made a démarche, or diplomatic protest, to the Berlusconi Government over allegations concerning the tactic.
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