InfoAnda - French in show of force in deadly Afghan valley

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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Search Search: Sign InNew User? Sign Up News Home - Help Navigation Primary Navigation Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Top Stories Most Popular Secondary Navigation Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam Search Search: French in show of force in deadly Afghan valley AFP - Sunday, March 15 SAROBI, Afghanistan (AFP) - - It is still night when the convoy moves off, winding through hills like a huge snake: around 100 French armoured vehicles descend into a valley east of Kabul, their lights lacing through the darkness. ADVERTISEMENT More than 500 French soldiers and 300 Afghan police and soldiers, as well a handful of men from the Norwegian Special Forces on all-terrain quad bikes are on the ground for "Operation Three Valleys" in the district of Sarobi. Above, reconnaissance drones and helicopters watch over the only route, a difficult and dusty road that is vulnerable to ambushes. It was just a few kilometres (miles) from here that the French military last August suffered its heaviest loss in 25 years when 10 soldiers were killed in an insurgent attack. "We want to show the people and the insurgents that the French army is not here for revenge but that we will go where we want to and when we want to," says Colonel Franck Chatelus, who commands the French battalion in Kabul. The Afghan forces lead this push into a sometimes hostile area. "This is also the time to show that the Afghan army today is not the same one of a few years ago, when it looted the country and maltreated the population," Chatelus adds. The area, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the capital, is austere, stoney and mountainous; in the valley, small villages of mud-brick houses suddenly appear alongside a few fields. French soldiers take position on the ridges while Afghan troops cover the police as they enter a village called Washa Kalay with a hostile reputation. A quick search of some houses reveals nothing of interest but there is a field of opium poppies -- a lucrative crop that officials say finances some of the insurgents. Police unenthusiastically uproot some of the shoots with a wooden spade, stamping on others. "The insurgents who were in the village have gone to the other side of the mountain in Laghman province," says Mohibullah Babakar Khel, from the Afghan intelligence service. Later the French colonel addresses elders in the village: "We offer our hand to the insurgents who agree to give up and cooperate with us." "Give us your mines and bombs so that we can destroy them otherwise they risk killing or wounding your children." The impoverished residents demand a well, electricity, a school. "If a school is built, this area has to be secure. And a school would have to be for boys and for girls," says a French officer, referring to a tendency to prevent girls getting an education. The French put on an impressive security cover for a visit the next day to the village of Siri Kalay but wait an hour for the police to arrive -- enough time for any insurgents to hide arms or ammunition. This time only Afghan police enter the village, making for an unoccupied house that is said to belong to a "Commander Rostam," a member of the radical Hezb-e-Islami faction who has fled to Pakistan. The raid nets police and military uniforms as well some electrical components, perhaps used for detonators. "Here the people are all against us," says 20-year-old policeman Nasratullah, who earns just 120 dollars a month. "Policemen have been killed close by. Without the planes of the international forces, they would have ambushed us." The rebels may have been silent but the area is still dangerous: on the first day of the operation, mine clearers destroyed three rockets already in their launchers. But the foreign troops -- part of a steadily expanding NATO-led International Security Assistance Force that now numbers about 62,000 across Afghanistan -- believe they have made an impression. "The outcome of the operation is not material but psychological and moral. Little by little we are gaining the confidence of the population," says Chatelus, the French colonel. "The insurgents were unable to do anything, they have been discredited in the eyes of the people," he says. 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