Muhammad, a scrawny 19-year-old with a wisp of a beard, said he ignored the talk at first. But after hearing it again and again, it got to him.
Day in and day out, students in his Islamic religious school in Pakistan would chatter excitedly about crossing the border and joining the holy war. Rapture, they said, awaited those who perished.
"The only thing they would talk about was jihad," he said. "And going to heaven."
After five months of sermons and rumors, the young man said, he relented and volunteered.
Afghanistan's government forces captured Muhammad in July and he now sits in jail, held as a Taliban fighter. From his joining to his capture, only 10 days elapsed, he said.
His account could not be confirmed and he was interviewed in front of Afghan officials.
But his description of Taliban tactics matched that of a prisoner also interviewed during August.
Muhammad's family, from the rugged area in eastern Kandahar province, fled the Afghan wars of the 1980s, going to Quetta, just over the border in Pakistan.
At 14, he enrolled in a madrasa, or religious school. In the 1980s, the United States indirectly funded the schools, which produced young Afghans eager to fight the Soviets. Today, he said, the talk has been of "jihad against Americans."
Taliban officials did not directly recruit at the school, the Anwarulum madrasa, he said. Instead, pro-Taliban students did.
After he volunteered, he joined a group of a dozen recruits who were mostly in their 20s. All were from madrasas and mosques, he said. A Taliban commander he identified as Mullah Mohammed Issa gave them money and a guide to travel to Afghanistan, a country he had not lived in for 15 years.
They were given no weapons inside Pakistan, he said. If US. troops caught them trying to cross the border, he said, they were to claim they were Afghan workers returning from jobs in Pakistan.
Driving at first and then moving on foot, they crossed into Zabul province and then Paktika province. There, they were issued Kalishnikov assault rifles at a hidden forward arm depot established by Taliban commanders.
Then, he said, monotony began. During the day, they climbed into the mountains to avoid US forces.
By night, they returned to the lowlands. Local people were supportive, he said. Ten villages offered them food and shelter for the night. After several days, his group joined 40 other Taliban fighters, mostly Afghans and a few Pakistanis. "I was the youngest one," he said.
The commanders were experienced Taliban fighters, he said. His commander, a man he identified as Haji Qari, an Afghan from Kandahar about 40 years old, counseled his recruits to target Afghan soldiers, not American ones.
"Haji Qari would talk about the Americans and say they were very strong," Muhammad said. "To try and fight Afghan soldiers, they are very weak."
After a week of plodding in the mountains, Muhammad said that he grew bored and homesick.
"Eight days, no operations," he added. "Just walking."
He was caught returning to Pakistan, he and his Afghan jailers said. A bruise covered one side of his face and a fresh cut healed over one eye. He said that Afghan troops who guard the American base at Kandahar's airport had beaten him.
He expressed bitterness though not at his captors but at the Taliban
"They give sermons to fight the infidels and fight the Americans," Muhammad said.
"When they bring you to the battle, they don't have access to the Americans, and they order you to attack ordinary people," he said.
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