IN THE heart of Salisbury Plain, at a mock-up village built for urban warfare training, 3,000 British soldiers came face to face yesterday with 16 Afghans in traditional costume, some armed with Kalashnikov rifles.

The Afghans were the real thing, although most came from London. They were among 60 recruited to help troops to prepare for Operation Herrick, a three-year mission in Afghanistan.

Their role was to tell soldiers about life in their country and about the different culture that the troops will experience when they are deployed to Helmand province, in the south, in the next few months. A force of 3,300 soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade is to be sent there in the summer, John Reid, the Defence Secretary, announced on Thursday.

Brigadier Ed Butler, who will be Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan when the mission starts in July, said that his soldiers would adopt the traditional “softly, softly” approach and get to know the local people when they arrived.

The Afghans, recruited by an agency, gathered yesterday at Copehill Down village, built for military exercises. Two of the men were dressed as Afghan police and armed with Kalashnikovs. One, called Zaki, who was most recently in Afghanistan six years ago, said that it was important for the soldiers to get an idea of what his country was like before they went.

The soldiers, mostly from the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment, will be based in Helmand, where they will help with reconstruction. Even so, they were put on display yesterday with all their weaponry to demonstrate that if the enemy were to consider taking them on, they had the means to defend themselves.

They showed off their 50-calibre heavy machineguns, Milan anti-tank missiles and the new Apache attack helicopters equipped with Hellfire missiles. The Army Air Corps’ Apaches swept over the village and hovered above fields.

Brigadier Butler, who is the commanding officer of 16 Air Assault Brigade, said that the principal aim was to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan, not to charge around in combat mode.

However, he acknowledged that if the Taleban did challenge the British troops, he wanted the first response to be sufficiently robust to send a warning to the former rulers of Afghanistan.

The soldiers also were keen to point out that, first and foremost, they were trained to fight. Private Chris Conn, 23, of 3 Para and from Plymouth, said: “We’re not going there specifically to deal with the terrorists, but if we come up against the Taleban, we’ll deal with them.”

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