Le Monde a French news source writes that French soldiers supposedly killed by Taliban would have been killed by Nato-friendly fire. According to a wounded soldier, the NATO airstrikes meant to enable soldiers out of the ambush have missed their target and hit french soldiers, along with fire from Afghan soldiers in positioned downstream. Radio communications had been cut creating a great frustration among the soldiers stuck at the pass.”“When we arrived at fifty metres from the ridgeline,” said one soldier, the firing began. They have not stopped for six hours. Among the attackers, there were snipers, they were more in numbers….. ”
The Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, described the incident during a press conference in Paris as “an ambush mounted well.” ……Then pledged “a round of fighting which lasted until late in the evening on a field extremely favorable to the enemy”, according to the general, while “air support were made by the coalition.”
On August 18, the French suffered its first heavy losses in Afghanistan during an ambush in which ten soldiers were killed and twenty-one were wounded.