At dawn yesterday Musa Qala was a deserted, shuttered ghost town with only British and Afghan soldiers moving around and not a single civilian in sight.

A day earlier, soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, had searched compounds and came across only one dead Taleban and an old man, who was alive.

But by lunchtime yesterday, as British and Afghan troops fanned out and searched the town’s compounds and homes – where they found abandoned bomb factories, weapons and equipment – the first farmers and traders began returning from the desert where they had fled. At first they came in ones and twos and then later in small family groups, walking across the fields where opium poppies was sprouting, fearful and with good reason. The radio had informed them that the town was in government hands and that it was safe to return. But one farmer, coming back from the desert, where his family was still in hiding, was nearly shot outside his home after ignoring an order by the British patrol to stop.

Damien Lawrence, a corporal from Scarborough, said: “I nearly shot him but I thought he was too old to be a suicide bomber and he didn’t run at me.”

Although still shaking, the farmer, called Abdul, insisted that he was pleased to see the British. He said: “I hated the Taleban. They put me in jail for cutting my beard.”

As the farmer’s friends nervously emerged from their compounds to speak to the soldiers, similar complaints were loudly made about the Islamists, who for the past ten months controlled Musa Qala.

The town’s key significance for the Taleban was that it was the only place in Afghanistan where they were able to reimpose their control. Key to this was the militants’ insistence that they would not be as strict in their rule as they had been. They also claimed that they had brought peace and security to Musa Qala. But the picture described by returning residents was of a harsh rule, in which homegrown militants were joined by Pakistani and Arab jihadis.

When British soldiers asked Abdul if he knew where the Taleban were hiding, he replied: “If I knew I would take you by the hand and lead you there.” He insisted that the Taleban had banned music and smashed cassette tapes just as they had done when they ruled Kabul with an iron fist before 2001.

The farmer and his friends said they approved when the Taleban hanged two thieves in the town. But they were not so comfortable when three men were publicly executed after being accused of spying for the British.

In a nearby compound a 14-year-old boy called Abdul Khalid said that his 12-year-old cousin and brother-in-law had been killed by a helicopter gun-ship five days earlier as they fled the town in a car. Captain Tom Bailey said: “It is gutting when civilians die. Some blame has to be attached to the Taleban who hide among innocent people.”

In the centre of the town, there were no signs of the Nato bombardment. Fields were strewn with leaflets containing cartoons that urged the Taleban to give up.

Before finishing their sweep the British encountered a farmer called Ghani. He said: “They [the Taleban] said I was a spy and beat me. They said they were going to hang me but my friends persuaded them not to.”

He pulled up his shirt to show a livid scar that he said they had inflicted, saying: “I beg the Afghan National Army not to leave Musa Qala. If they do the Taleban will come back and kill all the people.”

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