British Soldiers Could be Fighting Their Own Countrymen.

British soldiers in Afghanistan might be fighting and killing men they grew up with back home.
An unconfirmed report in the London newspaper The Telegraph claims that the arm of a Taliban fighter killed by Her Majesties’ forces was marked with an Aston Villa Football Club tattoo. Birmingham-based Aston Villa is one of Britain’s most popular soccer teams and part of the Premier League.
This would be like finding a New York Yankees cap or an Oakland Raiders shirt on a dead Taliban fighter. It’s an indication that the individual in question grew up in Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city, and like most working class Englishmen was a rabid football (soccer) fan.
The same Telegraph article claims that Royal Air Force intelligence officers monitoring Taliban communications have heard jihadists speaking in working class English accents. This means that some British subjects (citizens) maybe fighting against their own countrymen in Afghanistan.
If British Muslims are helping the Taliban in Afghanistan they may not be there to wage Jihad. In February, the notorious London tabloid The Daily Star ran a hysterical article that claimed that street gangs composed of young Muslims were selling heroin supplied by the Taliban on the streets of British cities such as London. This means the British Muslims in Afghanistan could simply be criminals there to cash in on the heroin bonanza and not terrorists.
It should be noted there that British newspapers are notoriously unreliable sources of information. The Telegraph article quotes from anonymous sources inside the British military so its claims can’t be verified. None of the supposed gang members interviewed by The Star’s reporter are identified either so their claims can’t be verified as well.
Still this represents a troubling new development in the War on Terror. The conflict is becoming messier and more complicated and perhaps far more destructive.