The perpetrator of the Uzbin ambush shot down in a NATO raid

(BRUSSELS2) The news was communicated today, the anniversary of the attack of 11/09, by the NATO stabilization force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Mullah Hazrat, author of the attack on French soldiers in Uzbin in 2008, was killed in an air raid led by NATO, along with another local Taliban leader, Shakir. The two men were killed in a precise high precision airstrike on Alliance HQ on Sunday (Sept 9) in Alisheng area, Laghman province. "No civilians were harmed during the attack," the statement said, according to an acknowledgment made after the strike. Mullah Hazrat is said to have in recent months, "ordered several attacks on Afghan and coalition forces, including the use of suicide bombings in Kabul" and "coordinated the entry into the country of insurgents from Pakistan“, according to the press release of the ISAF. While Shakir, alias Attullah, is presumed responsible for numerous deadly attacks in this western province of Afghanistan; the coalition suspected him lately of preparing the enrollment of a new team of jihadists.

The Uzbin ambush in the summer of 2008, which is still today the bloodiest attack for the French since the beginning of Western intervention in the country, had led to the death of ten French soldiers and had left 21 others injured. The French army had just, a few days earlier, taken command of this valley in the district of Surobi, not far from the province of Laghman and the foot patrol, responsible for securing the area had been taken "under heavy firesaid General Jean-Louis Georgelin at the time. Then followed a two-day battle againstover a hundred Taliban“, according to the ISAF. The majority of the soldiers killed belonged to the 8th Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (RPIMa) in Castres. The case had at the time caused a stir and raised a number of questions both about the means of the French army and the exact circumstances of the deaths. A NATO report, published in the Canadian media but denied by the French Ministry of Defence, claimed that the French soldiers had not been able to fight for more than 90 minutes, for lack of ammunition. After complaints from the families, an investigation was opened by an investigating judge. Opening of a rather rare investigation, at least in France, for deaths in operation. The Court of Cassation, however, confirmed last May the merits of such an investigation. The question of air support, which was missing that day, is on the table, as is the supervision and training on site, and the existence of a  "negligence or breach of a security obligation".