Quagmire.
The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is today due to reopen a renovated key highway linking the capital, Kabul, with Kandahar in the south. Built in the early 1960’s with US funding, the highway was left a dusty potholed track after decades of conflict. It had to be cleared of more than 1,000 mines and pieces of unexploded ordnance before work could start. Reconstruction of the highway has been hampered by attacks on deminers and road workers by suspected Taliban remnants. Some 1,000 policemen have been been deployed by the interior ministry to patrol the highway. President Karzai will be joined at the official reopening by the US ambassador and Japan’s envoy whose governments financed the renovation of the 480 kilometre road.
Nice work. Hope the road gets used more by the civilians than the mafiosi. |