Afghanistan Marks a Milepost on Long Road Back to Security

The road rebuilt to symbolize Afghanistan’s rebirth is also proof that the country has a long way to go before it is at peace.

On Tuesday, it took hundreds of U.S. and Afghan troops, backed by attack helicopters, antitank weapons, snipers and bomb-sniffing dogs to make it safe for President Hamid Karzai to cut the ribbon on the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway.

Suspected Taliban guerrillas have killed or kidnapped at least nine Afghan and foreign workers during reconstruction of the highway, so no one was taking any chances at the official opening ceremony.

Before the formalities, troops set up roadblocks to stop traffic in both directions for more than three hours. That was just long enough for dignitaries to arrive in heavily guarded convoys and on Chinook helicopters, celebrate a job well done and rush back to safer ground in Kabul, the capital, 25 miles northeast.

During the speeches, U.S. troops rushed to a dirt parking lot and told Afghan drivers there that someone had “called terrorists from here,” driver Abdul Rasool said. The soldiers checked the men’s cellphones but said none of the numbers matched the call they had traced, Rasool said.

As the dignitaries spoke, driver Mohammed Aslam was stuck at a roadblock with five passengers in his taxi packed to the ceiling with their belongings. They were headed for Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold.

“Karzai is our president. We agree with that,” Aslam said as he waited to be allowed back on the road. “We also like him, and would not harm him, so he should have let us pass.”

Aslam said the three-hour delay had cost him about $23 -- enough to feed his family for more than a week. But that may have been a small price to pay for a road that should be good for business: What used to be a 30-hour, bone-rattling journey from Kabul to Kandahar, often over potholes as big as ponds, is now a six-hour trip on smooth asphalt.

Foreign travelers appear to run the highest risk of being killed, kidnapped or, if they’re fortunate, simply robbed. The victims have included a United Nations aid worker from France, who was slain Nov. 16 as she was traveling in Ghazni, a city along the highway; two Indian road workers kidnapped Dec. 6; and a Pakistani road engineer killed two days later. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for those attacks and others on the road.

“We have repeatedly said that no work should be done in Afghanistan in the presence of Americans,” Mullah Sabir Momin, the Taliban’s deputy operations commander in the south, said after the Pakistani was killed.

“It does not matter whether those involved in such works are engineers, drivers, doctors or others. Anyone who assists America or the Afghan government is liable to death. American agents will not be spared even if they are Muslims.”

Karzai’s ribbon-cutting ceremony was held near a roadside monument of marble and stone that honors four Afghan workers killed Aug. 30 in an ambush on the highway.

Foreign troops are a rare sight on the road. Nearly 1,000 Afghan Interior Ministry police patrol the 300-mile, two-lane highway, but critics say real security is impossible without foreign forces.

The international troops in Afghanistan are focused elsewhere. The U.S. contingent is concentrating on searching for Taliban fighters and their allies in the south and east. An international security force led by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization operates mainly in Kabul and with small reconstruction teams in several provincial cities.

The highway, built by the United States in the 1960s, is part of a network called the ring road, a vital trade link between Afghanistan’s main cities.

Karzai and President Bush had made rehabilitating the Kabul-to-Kandahar section of the roadway a top priority.

The former Taliban regime repaired about 25 miles of the highway before it was deposed in December 2001. Japan paid to rebuild 30 miles of the road, and the Louis Berger Group, a U.S. firm, oversaw reconstruction of 233 miles.

The U.S. Agency for International Development pledged about $250 million for the project, of which $190 million has been spent. Additional layers of asphalt and other final touches are to be completed after winter ends. About 2,000 Afghans helped rebuild the road.

The project was plagued by delays in its early stages. Afghan sappers had to clear land mines from both sides of the road, and to speed the process, the U.N. brought in armored vehicles that collected roadside air samples, which were sent to labs to be sniffed by dogs. If the dogs detected the scent of mines or unexploded ordnance, de-mining teams went in for a closer look. Sappers have removed more than 100 mines and 900 pieces of ordnance.

As the deadline for completion neared, pressure from the White House kept things moving. Karzai recalled Tuesday that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told him two months ago that Bush asked every day about the progress, insisting, “Hurry, or you’ll be dismissed.”

On Tuesday, no one could remember ever having seen so many foreign and Afghan dignitaries in one place in this barren countryside. The governor of Wardak province, Raz Mohammed Dalili, couldn’t resist making a pitch for more help.

“I don’t want to complain about anything, because it’s enough for me that all these respectful personalities have gathered here. But I want to mention a few points and problems.

“There are poor people here in Wardak who don’t have work. Water is very difficult to reach because of the drought. The dams have all been destroyed. There is no electricity, and at the moment we don’t have radio in Wardak.”

The governor politely reminded U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad that moments earlier, as the two men chatted, the envoy had promised to build the people of Wardak a dam and their own radio station.

“I don’t want to complain a lot,” the governor repeated. “But still, I want government officials to pay attention to Wardak.”