Before the French replaces the Italian forces in July, the Italian forces had suffered only one combat death in the previous year. This makes a false impression that the area is not as dangerous. That is why the French troops were relatively lightly armed and insufficiently backed up by air cover when they were ambushed by 170 heavily armed insurgents.

 

The Italian did not inform the French the bribes to keep the Sarobi area near Kabul quiet in the months before French forces moved in.

 

The French had been in charge of the area for just a month when the 10 soldiers were killed in an insurgent ambush in August 2008, in one of the biggest single losses of life for NATO forces in Afghanistan.

 

A senior NATO officer in Kabul told the newspaper: "It might well make sense to buy off local groups and use non-violence to keep violence down. But it is madness to do so and not inform your allies."