Word: french
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...been a rough few weeks for Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai. Violence in his insurgency-wracked nation reached new levels on Aug. 18 when the Taliban attacked French troops belonging to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) just 30 miles (50 km) from the capital Kabul; 10 Frenchmen died and another 21 were wounded. The next day, militants massed against one of the biggest U.S. bases in the country, launching a coordinated attack that included six suicide bombers. Just a week earlier, militants had killed three foreign aid workers and their Afghan driver, prompting international aid missions to reconsider...
...Indeed, Monday's ambush, which killed 10 French soldiers and injured another 21, occurred 30 miles east of Kabul in a region that had only recently shifted from U.S. military control to France. It also coincided with the deployment of 700 new French troops to Afghanistan - lifting France's total to around 2,600 - in response to American pleas to for reinforcements that left most European allies largely unmoved. The Taliban waylaying of the French paratroopers was single deadliest attack in Afghanistan since June, 2005, when 16 American soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down. At total...
...French President Nicolas Sarkozy interrupted his summer vacation to travel to Kabul, pay tribute to the fallen French soldiers and underline that his support of the Afghan mission "remains intact." "Even though the toll is so high, you should be proud of what you are doing," Sarkozy told French forces. "The work that you're doing here is indispensable...
...Sarkozy's consistent backing of U.S.-led initiatives has repeatedly generated criticism that he has aligned French policies too closely to those of the unpopular and distrusted Bush administration. Those complaints resounded earlier this year when Sarkozy pledged to meet the American requests of new troops for Afghanistan. But Sarkozy was able to renew his commitment to the Afghan operation Wednesday with the knowledge that public opinion believes in the mission's necessity...
...midnight, but Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili is just hitting his stride. In an interview in the fortress-like presidential residence on a hill in downtown Tbilisi, dressed in a blue suit and light blue silk tie, he fields questions in French and English, trades text messages with an aide, and holds forth on topics ranging from current and historic confrontations between his country and Moscow, to the number of Russian passports distributed last year in Crimea (177,000). He refers to European foreign ministers by first name, chats about John McCain and his wife, expected shortly on a humanitarian...