Dalton Fury

"General Hazrat Ali was paid $4 million to rent his leadership and his men. Haji Zaman Gamsurek supported by the United Kingdom was paid $2 million," said Mr Fury.

When the Taliban regime collapsed, Osama Bin Laden was cornered in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, but Mr Fury said that only a tenth of the promised Afghan troops arrived.

The Afghan warlord the UK backed went on to organise a ceasefire with al-Qaeda, he said.

The CIA's head of operations in Afghanistan at the time, Ambassador Hank Crumpton, alleged some Afghan warlords were later paid off by al-Qaeda to let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora and into Pakistan.

"Sadly, with only a handful of American forces, we relied on some of our Afghan forces.

"Some of those in retrospect we know were influenced by al-Qaeda, some were paid off and Bin Laden was allowed to escape," Mr Crumpton said.

The CIA advised against trusting the two warlords because of possible links to Bin Laden.

We have no choice.