British troops were braced yesterday for their hardest challenge in the notoriously difficult town of Musa Qala in Helmand province.

Days after driving out a strong Taleban force they were preparing to hold the town against expected counterattacks and beginning to help to develop a local administration that will be supported by a jaded population.

To provide physical defences, Gurkha engineers were using diggers to pile sand into giant hessian bags in front of a derelict building that last held Taleban fighters. Afghan soldiers were setting up machinegun posts on nearby roofs. But a more difficult operation was persuading the people that they will be better off under the Afghan Government than supporting the Taleban. Some admitted that they did not really care who held the town, they just wanted security. Ahmad Nurzai, a shopkeeper, opened for business, selling biscuits and fruit to American paratroopers. A few days ago the Taleban had been his customers. He said: “The Taleban are poor people. They didn’t have money to buy things. I don’t care about politics really, I just want to live without worrying about war and criminals.”

Elsewhere, Afghan troops were handing out blankets and prayer mats for adults and boiled sweets for children. People who had fled to the desert were returning and being greeted warmly by the Afghan soldiers.

Some civilians spoke of casualties during the military operation. Abdul Bari said his brother had been shot in the legs when American troops stumbled across him in the dark. They apologised, he said, and put him on a helicopter to a hospital in Kandahar.

With the town secure and its population returning, the British started an operation that has been planned for months to rebuild the town. In the afternoon they welcomed the first Afghan building contractors, who had risked the drive up from Lashkar Gah through bandit country. Britain has more than £3 million set aside for rebuilding, with a mosque project at the top of its list of priorities. The town was barely damaged during the operation but a number of buildings have suffered from neglect.

Town elders will meet in a council called a Shura in the next few days to choose a district governor, and the Kabul Government will make Musa Qala a test case for its authority.

In the past, local officials have had a reputation for corruption and incompetence, a major reason for Taleban support in the area.

Power, health, education and rural development will be priorities. But the military has no plans to eradicate the opium poppy, the mainstay of Musa Qala’s economy, which is sprouting in the fields.

The success or failure of the Government’s fresh attempt to control Musa Qala and the British effort to hold it will rest heavily on the Afghan National Army. British soldiers have been impressed with their performance in the operation to retake Musa Qala, the first time that the ANA has fought alongside the British on a big scale.

They have proved particularly adept at winning the trust of Afghan civilians in a way that is impossible for foreign soldiers. In the next few weeks, with Musa Qala braced for Taleban counter-attacks and suicide bombers, they will be put to their biggest test.

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