Britons held on charges of links to the Taliban

KABUL, reports said on Thursday. 

The Ministry of Defence in London said: “We can confirm that British forces have detained two individuals in Afghanistan who claim to be British nationals.”

According to the BBC, the British Foreign Office also confirmed the arrests and said embassy authorities were “providing assistance”.

Quoting an unnamed Afghan source, the BBC said the men were arrested during an Afghan-UK troop raid on a hotel in western Herat province, whose security is being transferred to local control on Thursday.

Clad in Afghan dress, the men were arrested in Helmand, the Sun newspaper reported. The detainees are being held on a UK military base in the province.

A report in the Times said the detainees may have been planning an attack on British troops in Afghanistan. “It was terrorism-related. It was a UK-led operation,” an Afghan official told the newspaper about last week’s operation.

A day earlier, security responsibility for Lashkargah, the provincial capital, was transferred from NATO-led troops to Afghan forces.

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