FIRST the traitor was hanged, then his head was cut off and finally the Taliban placed it on a road at the point where it enters Musa Qala.

“They killed him at 3am and left his head there for everyone to see,” said Gul Wali, 14. “They killed both traitors and thieves. The traitors were giving secrets to the enemy.”

Three others were hanged in the town. One was left strung up at a different entrance, one from a monument in the centre and the third in the bazaar.

Wali’s description, confirmed by other witnesses, added to an emerging picture of the brutal rule imposed by the Taliban in this strategic town in Helmand province after they seized control last February.

Residents trickling back after British, American and Afghan troops retook it last week said the Taliban had banned smoking and the use of snuff, and had beaten and thrown into jail those they disliked. Some said the Taliban had extorted money to fund their jihad against the Afghan government and Nato forces.

As the only reporter in Musa Qala when the Afghan flag was raised in the town on Wednesday, I watched Afghan and British troops, backed by US Green Berets, advance to the centre through empty streets. After nearly a week of heavy fighting on the outskirts, the Taliban militia had bolted. Rotting fruit on the market stalls showed that the civilians had fled just as rapidly.

Residents who had come back said they had been hiding in the nearby desert with their families. Speaking at a checkpoint where returners were searched for weapons, Mahmoud, 18, said there had been no school in the town for months. When the Taliban arrived they turned it into a religious madrasah and their headquarters. “No one sent their kids to the school because they were afraid the Americans would drop bombs and everyone would be killed,” he said.

Mohamed Anwar, 20, a doctor’s son, said his family’s pharmacy had been destroyed by an American bomb but he was glad to see the back of the Taliban. “I was put in jail when I wouldn’t give them money, and they tortured me by pouring cold water on me morning and night,” he said.

Meanwhile, a British-led search operation was finding evidence of the key role Musa Qala played in the Taliban’s insurgency. Moving from one walled compound to another, Afghan troops and their British mentors found not only a network of air raid shelters and carefully dug trenches, but well established factories for the manufacture of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), deadly roadside bombs.

In one compound, there were piles of components: explosives extracted from mortar shells or artillery rounds, detonators and pressure pads made from saw blades, wood and rubber that could be hidden under the road.

“This is the largest find of IEDs and explosives that we’ve ever seen in Helmand,” said Lieutenant Dan Hopwood, of the Royal Engineers.

There was also a huge haul of drugs. In two compounds a stock-pile of more than 12 tons of brown heroin was uncovered, worth tens of millions of pounds in Britain, along with the chemicals and oil drums used to process it. Orders were passed to the British troops to destroy the drug.

The scale of the drug production illustrates the problems that lie ahead for the British. “All the families here grow opium,” said one father of two children. “We bribed the Taliban so they would let us do our business. All the people from all over Helmand brought their poppies here to process.”

The British hope to wean Helmand off the poppy. But, pointing across the well irrigated fields on all sides of the Musa Qala valley, one farmer, Sayed Hassan, explained the problem that local people would face if they abandoned the crop. All the greenery, which could in theory support other crops, was in effect paid for by opium, he said. “We only have irrigation because we can afford the expensive diesel fuel. Without the poppy we can’t afford the diesel.

“If the British and Americans destroy the poppy, everyone will leave and join the Taliban.”

As we sat talking in the street, the strength of Taliban support was not hard to find. Several of those returning accosted our translator, an Afghan from Kabul. “Why are you working for the infidel?” they asked.

The town itself appeared largely unscathed by the bombing, although many complained that innocent civilians had been killed by Nato forces, particularly the Americans.

One 18-year-old said: “All the Americans do is kill our people. All of Helmand is Taliban and, God willing, they shall return.”

An elder expressed a more considered view: “Here there are mixed feelings. Some like the Taliban; some like the infidel.”

Last week the British commander, Brigadier Andrew Mackay, would not be drawn on his plans. But, arriving in Musa Qala as Afghanistan’s flag was raised, he acknowledged that the Afghan troops now garrisoned there could expect a fierce counterattack in the coming months. Meanwhile, reconstruction and development would be a priority.

The British Army has arrived in Musa Qala with more than £2m to spend on “quick impact” projects. They may include building new mosques and roads, repairing schools and restoring electricity and water supplies.

Mackay said the operation to recapture the town, the biggest military offensive yet staged by the British in Afghanistan, had been geared towards taking it intact with minimum firepower. “Musa Qala has been a running sore and a problem for us,” he admitted. “What it represented was ungoverned space and our inability to have a positive effect, not only on security but on development as well.”

Reports suggest that, despite hundreds of Taliban casualties in the past two weeks, at least two of their key commanders are still at large and their forces are regrouping to the north and east of the town.

Most British commanders believe the numerical strength of the Taliban’s hardened fighters will prove less important in the long run than whether they can win their most difficult battle: earning the consent of the people of this town.

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