Flying Tigers in Afghanistan

Flying Tigers in Afghanistan

Kym Bergmann reports from Kabul: Even as France starts a slow drawdown of troop numbers prior to a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014, combat units have recently completed one of their most intense fighting seasons since 2001. Most of the 4,000 troops are deployed in two provinces – Kabul (especially the district of Surobi) and Kapisa - which have seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war. While the capital city of Kabul is considered relatively secure by the standards of Afghanistan, the same cannot be said of the surrounding countryside. French responsibilities. Kabul itself sits on a piece of flat land surrounded by mountains but the geography of the Surobi district and all of Kapisa is inhospitable – high barren ridges, bleak terrain, steep sided gorges with small green pockets of agriculture found on scattered and isolated river flats. The city sits at 1,800 meters above sea level with nearby peaks rising to 3,000 metres. Kapisa in general and the Tagab valley in particular are considered insurgent strongholds, with a mixture of suicide bomb cells, tribal militias, members of the Haqqani network, fighters belonging to Hezb-i-Islami and so on. The picture is very complex and even sorting out the motives of the various anti-Government groups is not easy, with a senior French officer telling APDR, “the more we find out, the more unclear it becomes.”

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