Posted on 06/12/2006 5:58:36 PM PDT by SandRat
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan, June 12, 2006 The French military started its second phase of air operations in Afghanistan on May 26.
Dubbed "Operation Serpentaire," for Serpent-Eater, French aviators have performed close-air support and tactical reconnaissance missions supporting Operation Enduring Freedom and the International Security Assistance Force. This phase of the operation will support coalition efforts until October. A contingent of 21 French servicemembers here have coordinated French air assets over Afghanistan as part of Combined Joint Task Force 76. In its first phase, from May 5-25, the French carrier air group, based at Camp Cherry-Beasley here since April 8, participated in both OEF and ISAF missions. They performed about 7 percent of OEF missions. This phase ended with the departure of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle from the Indian Ocean on May 25 and the arrival of French air force fighters in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Aircraft departing from the Charles de Gaulle flew 500 miles with four mid-air refuelings en route to their areas in the Kandahar and Uruzgan regions of southern Afghanistan. In addition to the Bagram French Detachment, French teams are also stationed in Kabul and southern regions of Afghanistan as well as at a base of operations in Southwest Asia. (French Capt. Géry Balcerski is assigned to the French Air Force Detachment Bagram.) |
Related Sites:
International Security Assistance Force
Be nice now, they are helping in Afghanistan.
good stuff.. about time they got off their pompous derrieres and bled for humanity
No one should ever judge the real men of a nation by their sissy countrymen.
And it sounds for real too. Thank you, France.
Why would they need 5 loads of fuel [original +4 midair refuelings] to fly 500 miles? Is it that somebody is siphoning it off and sells it on the side?
French Quality Engineering???
I would suspect garden variety corruption, inflating fuel invoices and selling the siphoned off fuel on the side. Per Occam razor - the simpler the explanation the truer.
True words! That is the mistake many have made regarding us, starting with George III and including Adolf Hitler and Al Qaeda.
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