Their revulsion increased with the news that many of the dead soldiers had been mutilated — and with the publication of photographs showing the militants triumphantly sporting their victims’ flak jackets and weapons. The French had been in charge of the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, for only a month, taking over from the Italians; it was one of the biggest single losses of life by Nato forces in Afghanistan.

What the grieving nation did not know was that in the months before the French soldiers arrived in mid-2008, the Italian secret service had been paying tens of thousands of dollars to Taleban commanders and local warlords to keep the area quiet, The Times has learnt. The clandestine payments, whose existence was hidden from the incoming French forces, were disclosed by Western military officials.

Four days before Christmas 2006, Gwen’s mother Gloria Lopez, a 47-year-old secretary, tidied her kitchen, hung out her washing, left her dull, suburban apartment overlooking the railway in Colombes, west of Paris, and walked the 30 metres on to the tracks. She stood with her arms outstretched, smiling at the driver of the oncoming commuter train. He couldn’t stop in time.

After divorcing Pascal Le Berre, a French teacher, Lopez met Scientologists and signed up. The church was to become her life. Eventually, she moved to Paris, leaving her two children behind, to be nearer the Scientology Centre.

The Le Berres filed a legal complaint partly blaming Scientology for her death. In 10 years as a Scientologist, they estimate, Lopez spent up to $400,000 on courses and books - despite her secretary’s salary of $3300 a month. Her family claims she was counselled by Scientology financial advisers and decided to sell a property she had inherited in Spain. ‘’They stole my mother,’’ Gwen says. ‘’I don’t feel I knew my mother apart from i

Could the claims emerging daily against Silvio Berlusconi leave him open to the kind of persuasion that makes holding political office impossible? Would he be tempted to cut a deal to suppress them? Even his friends on the Right are starting to wonder.

“The spectre of blackmail hangs over Berlusconi,” said La Stampa. Giampiero Mughini, a right-wing commentator, said: “A Prime Minister who is so blackmailable is a problem for the country.”

Berlusconi loyalists, including Ignazio La Russa, the Defence Minister, are still publicly blaming the allegations on a labyrinthine plot to undermine him but there are also hints of a move against him by his own side.