Jailed Taliban commander “regrets violent past,” backs Brit soldiers now in Afghanistan

KABUL - A jailed Taliban commander in Central Helmand Prison, Mullah Abdul Ghani, has claimed that he now deeply regrets his violent past and even hopes that British soldiers would stay in Afghanistan to secure peace.

According to the Sun, 37-year-old Ghani led 18 hardened fighters against the British soldiers for more than a year, laying bombs and orchestrating armed ambushes. But he was captured in 2007 and is now serving ten years in maximum-security the prison for his acts of terror in the Nade Ali district.

“I was an uneducated man, very immature. The mullahs, elders, and even my relatives told me to join the Taliban. They said infidels were in our land and we must get rid of them. I did not care if they were British or American - they were foreigners,” the paper quoted Ghani, as saying.

“I was brainwashed that this was right. I deeply regret it now - I used to respect the people who said this. I do not respect them now. People still doing these things are very wrong and stupid,” he added.

Ghani, handed in to police after he backed out of a suicide mission, also said that the “international community” were in Afghanistan to stabilize the country and urged co-operation from Afghan citizens and government to attain that stability and security.

Ghani began to realise he had been duped into fighting after entering the jail, and added that the Taliban have a brutal system while “British were very respectful of my religion and they were respectful of me as a human being.” (ANI)