The Brit's two-fingered problem in Afghanistan

Remember the Afghan expulsion of two British diplos several weeks ago? They were accused of having 'secret talks' with the Taliban and summarily bounced from the country. Denials were issued, but it looks like there was definitely more to the story. This from the Scotsman:

SECRET British plans for a Taleban training camp in southern Afghanistan are behind a spectacular diplomatic spat that has seen Anglo-Afghan relations plummet to an almost unprecedented low.

Afghan officials claim the camp for 2,000 fighters was part of a top-secret deal to make the insurgents swap sides. The plans were discovered on a computer memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December. The Afghan government claims they prove British agents were talking to the Taleban without the president's permission. The British insist president Hamid Karzai's office knew what was going on. But Mr Karzai expelled two top diplomats, linked to the plan, amid accusations they were part of a plot to buy-off the insurgents.

The row was the first in a series of disagreements. Since then Mr Karzai has blocked the appointment of Paddy Ashdown to a top UN job in Kabul and has blamed British troops for losing control of Helmand province.

Last week the president's political mentor, Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, endorsed a death sentence on a student journalist, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, for blasphemy, and two British contractors have been arrested in Kabul on trumped up weapons charges. Experts see it as deliberate "two fingers" to the British.

More at the link.

(I take it that "two fingers" is comparable to the middle finger here in the States? According to wICKipedia it is: The V sign, when the palm is facing toward the person giving the sign, has long been an insulting gesture in England and later in the rest of the United Kingdom, as well as in Ireland and parts of France. It is frequently used to signify defiance (especially to authority), contempt or derision and is often accompanied by the phrase 'fuck off'.)

Huh. The things you learn....