Bun fight in the badlands: democracy Afghanistan style

Welcome Mr David, please come in. We have great news. The Taliban have surrendered. Let me introduce you to them." It was not quite the announcement we had been expecting when a colleague and I were ushered into the cavernous office of the Wardak police commissioner where a loya jirga, or tribal meeting, was just concluding.

The room was packed with around 50 tribal leaders and assorted dignitaries from this northern Afghan province. At the top of the table, sat alongside the Governor of Wardak, Halim Fidai (centre in the photograph above), were two mean-looking Talibs. The older one was a two-eyed version of the group's maimed leader Mullah Omar and the younger an Afghani mash-up of Charles Manson and Che Guevara complete with gold Ray-Bans and flowing black locks. If a Hollywood-casting agency had been asked to produce an archetypal evil-yet-handsome bad guy, this was him.

"They have decided they no longer want to fight and they have brought in weapons and 70 men under their control," said Governor Fidai, beaming. "This is great news for Wardak and Afghanistan." And for us... we seemed to be the only foreign journalists in town.

It was the eve of Afghanistan's second-ever democratic presidential election and Kabul was overflowing with international media. Every rooftop vantage point had been bought and paid for. The BBC had even dug out John Simpson from his cryogenic chamber, and by the look of it, still wearing the same crumpled suit he wore for the invasion in 2002.

Security advisors say only people with a death wish travel to Wardak alone

Hence our decision to head out of town and escape the media scrum. Most of the roads south are too dangerous to travel alone so we secured an 'embed' with the enigmatic Halim Fidai, nicknamed the 'rock star' by one US colonel stationed here. Our home for two days would be Maidan Shah, the provincial capital of Wardak one of the most dangerous provinces in the country, only 30 minutes drive from Kabul.

If you believe the doom merchants - and we're not short of them out here - Wardak is now almost totally controlled by the Taliban. Some security advisors say it's impossible to travel there individually without a death wish or some serious close protection.

In July the Taliban were freely carrying out summary executions in villages in Wardak. In one reported instance an Afghan soldier was hanged and his body left swinging for three days. When I say reported, I should add that I actually witnessed it on a mobile phone, courtesy of my local shopkeeper in Kabul who took great pride in showing me the footage, complete with a Taliban pop soundtrack, after I casually mentioned I'd visited Wardak.

Here we were in the badlands, with some genuine ‘evil-doers’ in the house

Why? This is Afghanistan. This sort of horror actually passes for entertainment. You can find an assortment of compilation DVDs in the bazaars of Kabul; Now that's what I call Jihad - Volumes 1 to 40, Mujahadeen Gone Wild, Monster MRAPs & IEDs (some of the titles may have got lost in translation). There's no accounting for taste... bootlegs of Ross Kemp in Afghanistan are one of this year's biggest sellers.

So, here we were in the badlands of Wardak with some genuine 'evil-doers' in the house. The two Taliban were introduced to me as Wazir Gul and Gul Wazir. The palindrome pair, who come from the extremely hostile Chark district, responded to my questions with an icy indifference but were polite and courteous.

Governor Fidai steered their replies, but the overall rationale behind their decision to come in from the cold was that burning schools and