I parenti dei soldati francesi morti a Sarobi criticano gli ufficiali dell’Armée

Relatives of the French soldiers killed in the Sarobi ambush demanded an investigation yesterday into the circumstances of France’s worst military fiasco for 25 years.

“We have always thought the army has failed to tell the full truth about what happened, that it has been hiding things from us,” said Jean-François Buil, whose son Damien, 31, was among the dead.

Others denounced a series of errors committed by the French commanders, which they said left troops exposed. Joel Le Pahun, father of Corporal Julien Le Pahun, 20, told The Times of the lead-up to the disaster: “Two days earlier, I had my son on the telephone and he said they had been out on patrol half way up the mountain over the Uzbin Valley when they met some Afghans who told them to be careful, and that something was being prepared,” he said.

“At a debriefing a commanding officer said, ‘It’s a good job there were no Taleban there, otherwise we’d all be dead’. Despite this they went out again on patrol. That should never have happened.

“Given all the information they had, the commanding officers should have cancelled that patrol. I think there was an excess of confidence.

“I lost my son and I cannot accept the way it happened. It’s intolerable.”

He said he had not heard of Italian payments to local insurgents but added: “We had heard that the Italians who were in the region before the French did strictly nothing in terms of military activity and that the region was nevertheless calm. If they were paying the Taleban, that would explain why.”

Mr Buil, the dead sergeant’s father, said French intelligence officers had failed to appreciate the full extent of the dangers. “They did not come up to scratch and I think the commanding officers also took the risks lightly,” he said. “Those French soldiers were left to face 150 Taleban and I have huge doubts about the preparation for that mission.

“When my son left for Afghanistan we knew it would be dangerous — but not that dangerous. We thought he would basically be training the Afghan army or something like that. Then the day before the ambush he phoned to say, ‘Tomorrow we’re going out to catch the Taleban’. That was when we realised the full extent of the dangers.”