Helmand despatch: ‘Pakistan is the true enemy’
Mr Shamalany is a close ally of the British soldiers who patrol the dangerous roads around Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital 20 miles away. The Taliban sow fear in the villages, he said, but it is Pakistan that is the true enemy of Afghans like him.
“Yes, our Afghan village boys join the Taliban,” he conceded. "But only because they are scared by Taliban threats to their families.
“It is Pakistan that trains, funds and leads them. When we capture their fighters they confess that they are trained in Pakistan. The Pakistanis find religious boys, give them weapons, and send them across the border into **Afghanistan **to kill us, and to kill your British soldiers.”
Villagers grunted in agreement. “**Pakistan **is against Afghanistan, they want to destroy us,” said Mullah Yar Gul, 29, to approval.
They believed that many of the gunmen, who they were forbidden from talking to, were Pakistani fighters, speaking Pashtun with unfamiliar foreign accents.