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AFTER A breakfast of oval-shaped unleavened bread, cheese, amber-coloured local honey and green tea, all served on plastic sheeting rolled out on the floor, we sit and wait for the men who have promised to meet us.

Suddenly the man who brought us here enters the room and gestures for us to stand up as another man walks in. This, we are told, is M. He is in his forties and joined the Taliban in the 1990s. He has six children, two daughters and four sons, all of whom live in Waziristan, a restive tribal region across the border in Pakistan which is home to many of the Taliban high command as well as the upper echelons of al-Qaeda. M is based out of Zurmat, a town some 20 kilometres from Gardez which is considered the nucleus of Taliban activity in Paktia.