AFGHANISTAN:TEN FRENCH soldiers have been killed and 21 wounded after a Taliban ambush 65km east of Afghanistan's capital Kabul.
According to Afghan officials, four of the soldiers were "executed" after being captured during a two-day running battle with more than 100 insurgents.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy was due to arrive in Afghanistan this morning to show troops that "France was by their sides".
The casualties were mostly from France's 8th parachute regiment, recently arrived as part of a controversial reinforcement of the French presence in Afghanistan ordered by Mr Sarkozy earlier this year.
Elsewhere, a team of suicide bombers attempted to storm American and Afghan national army bases near the eastern city of Khost, the second major assault on the positions in 24 hours.
In the past three days, more than 100 people have died during fighting and bombings around the country.
"We had an okay winter and a good spring, but we are having a tough summer," said one official from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan.
The French casualties appear to have come after a joint Isaf and Afghan army patrol was ambushed on Monday afternoon in the Spir Kundi district of Kabul province, 20 miles northeast of the town of Sorobi, a strategic bottleneck on the crucial road linking the capital to the city of Jalalabad, near the Pakistani border.
Fighting continued overnight and into yesterday morning, although local officials said the clash was over by early afternoon.
The French force was backed up by air strikes and Afghan army troops. Afghan officials said three Afghan soldiers had been injured and dozens of Taliban militants killed.
The deaths will cause uproar in France. Mr Sarkozy has taken French foreign policy in a more pro-Washington direction than his predecessor Jacques Chirac, and has stressed France's commitment to the military and reconstruction effort in Afghanistan.
European nations have been under increasing pressure from the US to contribute more combat troops to contain the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
Since 2002, the French have contributed 1,000 men to the Isaf force patrolling Kabul, but the new troops were the first to be committed to combat operations, other than small detachments of special forces.
The deployment was originally planned for south Afghanistan where fighting has been fiercest. Before this latest incident, 14 French soldiers had been killed since their initial deployment.
Overall, 176 foreign soldiers have been killed this year in Afghanistan.
- (Guardian service)