<UK volunteer flees 'lunatics and liars'

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

A British Muslim who went to Afghanistan to defend it against the US-led coalition yesterday warned others not to make the same mistake after he deserted the Taleban and fled to Pakistan.

Abu Mindar, 26, from east London, told the Times that anyone who wanted to join the Taleban to seek glory or martyrdom in Afghanistan would find themselves at the mercy of "lunatics and liars".

Mr Mindar said he had been recruited after a meeting held by the radical al-Muhajiroun group, which has offices in London. After being flown to Pakistan, he was sneaked into Afghanistan with 25 other raw recruits of assorted nationalities to receive military training. Mr Mindar said they were driven to a place near Kabul, given AK-47 assault rifles and told to shoot an enemy they could not see. "Maybe I was naive, but I was told that there would be proper training and I would be joining an organised military unit and it was chaos," he said.

"There were other Taleban around and suddenly everyone started firing. [My bullets] nearly decapitated some of the others in our group. Before I knew it the other side, whoever they were, started firing back. Some shouted victory slogans but we hadn't done anything except get ourselves shot."

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