Thursday - October 15, 2009

Italy blamed for deaths of French troops.  Careful, it might not be true. Problem is …

We really don’t know who to believe.  If true it paints a pretty bad picture of how that war is being managed. Or maybe it isn’t being managed among the Italians.  ??  Don’t wanna be too fast on the trigger here.
The fact that this is tomorrows paper is bad enough.

Italy blamed for deaths of French troops after ‘hushing up bribes paid to Taliban’

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 4:27 PM on 15th October 2009

Italy’s secret services have been accused of paying the Taliban thousands of dollars to keep an area in Afghanistan controlled by the Italians safe.

Rome was also accused of hushing up the bribes, keeping them secret from Nato allies - meaning that when France took over the same area, Paris misread the security situation there.

Shortly afterwards, ten French soldiers were killed in a shock ambush that had massive political repercussions in Paris.

Today Italy’s defence minister slammed the report, printed in the Times newspaper, as ‘rubbish’.

Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s office called the report ‘completely groundless’.

The Times reported that Italy had paid ‘tens of thousands of dollars’ to Taliban commanders and warlords in the Surobi district, east of the capital, Kabul.

The newspaper cites Western military officials, including high-ranking officers at Nato accused Rome of failing to inform its allies, misleading the French, who took over the Surobi district in mid-2008, into thinking the area was quiet and safe.

Then, the French contingent was hit with the ambush. It was one of the single biggest losses of life suffered by Nato forces in Afghanistan.
Nato spokesman James Appathurai and French government officials refused to comment on the report.

‘The Berlusconi government has never authorized nor has it allowed any form of payment toward members of the Taliban insurgence,’ a statement by the premier’s office said.

It says it does not know of any such payment by the previous government.

Berlusconi won elections in April 2008, replacing a centre-left government headed by Romano Prodi.

The statement noted that in the first half of last year the Italian contingent suffered several attacks, including in the Surobi district where one soldier was killed in February 2008.

Defenve Minister Ignazio La Russa fired back at the Times, saying the newspaper ‘collects rubbish’.

In an interview with Corriere della Sera, La Russa said that in the summer of 2008 ‘I had been minister for a short time, I’ve never received news from the secret services of payment to the chiefs of the Taliban.’

La Russa said that a benevolent attitude toward the Italians who serve in Afghanistan is due to ‘the behavior of our military, which is very different compared to that of other contingents’.

‘They have always showed they are close to the people and they get the same in return,’ La Russa said of the Italian soldiers.

‘To connect all of this with the death of the French soldiers ... seems an absurdity to me.’

Italy has about 2,800 soldiers stationed in Herat and in the capital of Kabul.

SOURCE

Posted by peiper     on 10/15/2009 at 12:00 PM   
Filed Under: • EUro-peons • War-Stories •  
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