KABUL - A suicide bomber dressed in a burqa blew himself up near a French patrol in Afghanistan on Saturday, killing four soldiers and wounding five as the Taliban step up a spring offensive. The attack - one of the deadliest on the French contingent in months - occurred in the mountainous Kapisa province in the east of the country, an area mainly patrolled by a French force under NATO command. "It was an unfortunate incident. There was a patrol of coalition soldiers in a small bazaar and they were attacked by a suicide bomber wearing a burqa," Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told Reuters. French President Francois Hollande restated his plan to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by end-2012, well before NATO allies, as he offered condolences to the victims' families. "This operation will start in July and be finished by the end of 2012," Hollande, who took office in mid-May, said as he visited his political fiefdom 500 km (310 miles) south of Paris on the eve of a parliamentary election. Hollande said Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and army chief Edouard Guillaud planned to be in Afghanistan on Sunday. Until Saturday's incident, 83 French soldiers had been killed in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led military intervention began in 2001, the fourth highest number of military deaths by nation, behind the United States, Britain and Canada. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in the Nijrab district of the province, saying in an email message that a suicide attacker had struck the foreign soldiers.
