UK money 'backing Taliban against NATO'

Part-time jihadists making a living in the UK help fund the Taliban with money they raise in Europe and then regularly return to Afghanistan to join wars against NATO forces, the UK-based Guardian reported Wednesday.

These fighters spend most of the year in their UK homes, but out of a sense of duty they leave for periodic combat in the fighting season.

A Taliban commander in northern Afghanistan and a minicab driver in London told the paper last month that they knew many like them who collect money in Britain to fight NATO.

"I make good money there (in the UK), but these people are my friends and my family, and it's my duty to come to fight the jihad with them," he said.

NATO sources claimed that jihad travelers are extremely rare among British Muslims.

Calling the British mujahideen stories "rumors," a senior security officer noted that Taliban combatants pour in mostly from Pakistan, neighboring Arab countries and Central Asian states.

However, some evidence has been found that points to the presence of UK citizens fighting in the war-torn country.

Last year, the UK Royal Air Force spy planes detected voice signals with strong Yorkshire and Birmingham accents. An insurgent's dead body was also found with a tattoo of UK football club Aston Villa.

Agencies - Global Times