http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/10/20091015115621410622.html
UPDATED ON:
Thursday, October 15, 2009
16:46 Mecca time, 13:46 GMT
Italy denies 'Taliban payoff deal'
The newspaper accused Italy of paying off Taliban fighters to
keep certain areas safe [AFP]
A British newspaper report alleging 10 French soldiers died in
Afghanistan because Italy failed to inform them of a Taliban payoff deal has
been strongly denied by both Italy and France.
The Times newspaper reported on Thursday that Italy's secret services
paid the Taliban "tens of thousands of dollars" to keep the Sarobi area in
Afghanistan safe for its troops, but did not tell Nato allies about the deal.
It accused Italy of misleading the French, who took over control of the
district in mid-2008, into believing the area was safe, leaving them unprepared
for the attack in which the soldiers died.
But the office of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's prime minister, called the
report "completely groundless", while the country's defence minister added he
wanted to sue the newspaper.
"The Berlusconi government has never authorised nor has it allowed any
form of payment toward members of the Taliban insurgence," a statement from the
prime minister's office said.
'Rumours'
Admiral Christophe Prazuck, a spokesman for the French military, also
dismissed the report as "baseless".
"These are rumours, and it is not the first time we have heard them," he
said.
But Jean-Marc Ayrault, leader of the opposition Socialists, called for a
review of the Afghan mission, in which 2,900 French troops are serving.
The Times report said that because the French were not informed of the
alleged deal they made a "catastrophically incorrect threat assessment" of the
area.
It said US intelligence officials had discovered through intercepted
phone conversations that the Italians had been buying off fighters in Herat
province, western Afghanistan.
The paper continued that a number of high-ranking Nato officers had told
it that payments were discovered to have been made in the Sarobi area as well.
Following the ambush in August 2008, in which the French troops were
killed, reports emerged that the soldiers had been poorly equipped, and only
had one radio, which went dead, leaving them unable to call for help.
However, the French military have denied these reports.
Prazuck said French, Italian and Turkish troops, all of whom oversee the
Kabul region, had a relationship of "trust, full transparency".
"We share information constantly with the Italians, the Turks and the
French in Kabul, daily, regularly," he said.
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