Last French combat troops leave Afghanistan

http://www.dw.de/last-french-combat-troops-leave-afghanistan/a-16456606

Last French combat troops leave Afghanistan

A plane carrying around 200 soldiers from the 25th Belfort infantry regiment took off from Kabul late on Saturday morning. The soldiers were to be flown to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, before continuing on to France on Tuesday.

The pullout comes much earlier than originally planned, having been hastened first by an attack on French troops, and then by a presidential election.

France's former conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, reacted to a series of attacks on French troops by announcing earlier this year that the country would withdraw by the end of 2013. The most notable of these attacks came in January when an Afghan soldier shot dead five French troops.

Following his election in May, Socialist President Francois Hollande fast-tracked the pullout to bring the combat troops home by the end of 2012. The original plan would have seen France's combat mission end with that of the NATO-led International Security Force, at the end of 2014.