France Pledge to Afghanistan despite Killings

France appeared to lessen the prospect of an early withdrawal from the 10-year war in Afghanistan on Saturday, stressing its commitment to the country after an Afghan soldier killed four of its troops.

Defense Minister Gerard Longuet and Chief of Defense staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud flew into Afghanistan for emergency talks a day after the president threatened to order a swift exit of its 3,600 troops on the ground.

Paris reacted furiously after an Afghan soldier on Friday shot dead four unarmed soldiers and wounded 15 others as they completed a work-out on the training base they shared with Afghan troops.

"The entire point of this visit is to assess the position that we have to take," Longuet told reporters after arriving in Kabul to make recommendations to President Nicolas Sarkozy on the future of the deployment.

The French role in the U.S.-led NATO mission is unpopular at home and Friday's killings come less than 100 days before presidential elections.

Longuet appeared to distance himself slightly from the prospect of an immediate withdrawal, saying: "The mission remains exactly the same, to bring about a stable force" and "to handover" to the Afghans.

"We must reflect in order to support a mission that is a success."

France is one of the largest contributors to the 130,000-strong US-led NATO force fighting the Taliban and training Afghan soldiers to take responsibility for security by the end of 2014 when foreign troops are scheduled to withdraw.

Longuet refused to be drawn about the possibility of an early withdrawal, saying only: "I'll talk about that with the president, he's my only boss."

Friday's attack was the second time in a month that French troops were shot dead by a man in Afghan army uniform, bringing the country's overall death toll to 82 since troops deployed in 2001.

Longuet held talks with General Jean-Pierre Palasset, the French commander on the ground at their main base in eastern Afghanistan, and was then due to meet General Nazar, commander of the 3rd Afghan army brigade.

On Sunday, the French minister will meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai, the Afghan defense and interior ministers, U.S. commander General John Allen and other senior commanders in the International Security Assistance Force.

A classified report leaked to The New York Times says attacks by Afghan soldiers on NATO soldiers are increasing and are a "systemic" problem, rather than rooted in isolated incidents.

The report puts the killings down to a decade of contempt that each side has for the other and profound ill will among both civilians and soldiers on both sides. It downplayed the role of Taliban infiltrators in the incidents.

On arrival in Kabul, Longuet briefly boarded a French aircraft preparing to repatriate some of the soldiers seriously wounded in Friday's attack.

He said the men were victims of the trust they had in Afghan soldiers they were training at the base where one of them opened fire.

"They didn't have a chance. This was murder," said Longuet.

The minister is to brief Sarkozy on steps being taken by the Afghans to guarantee security conditions for the French trainers.

Sarkozy has said that without such conditions being clearly established, he will raise the prospect of an early return of the French army.

He has already immediately suspended French military training and joint combat operations with Afghan troops.

The French force is to be reduced to 3,000 by late 2012, with 200 due to leave in March. All NATO combat troops are due to leave by the end of 2014.