Dangerous Afghan highway threatens NATO supply flow

[unhappycamper]

Dangerous Afghan highway threatens NATO supply flow
By Saeed Shah
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: June 29, 2010

MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — Under relentless siege by Taliban insurgents, the crucial road that links the country’s most important cities, Kabul and Kandahar, has become one of the most dangerous highways in Afghanistan — if not on the planet — over the past year.

Insurgents have blown up a dozen bridges, six causeways and 85 culverts, according to U.S. officials. There were nearly 300 attacks on the road in a recent five-week period, mostly on armed convoys that were carrying goods for NATO forces. The Taliban have set up checkpoints to demonstrate their control of the highway.

Allah Dad, a 52-year-old native of Herat, was driving a truck last week that hauled a huge liquefied-gas tank and he was starting to overtake a NATO convoy in Ghazni province, about a third of the way from Kandahar to Kabul, when an ambush erupted as he entered a village.

"I jumped out of the truck — the engine was still running — and hid under a bridge," he said. "I feared that if the tanker was hit by a rocket, the whole area would be obliterated."

In fact, several rockets flew over his truck, said Dad, who’s been a driver for 33 years. He pointed out marks on the vehicle from bullets that had struck the door in several places, cut through external electrical cables, punched a hole in his reserve fuel canister and bounced off the tank, which holds the several tons of liquefied gas at high pressure. Picking a crushed bullet out of the door frame, Dad said the shooting had lasted about an hour and a half.



unhappycamper comment: Guess who spent $1 billion dollars to rebuild that road?