Securing the main road in Afstan

A key objective (among several) of the first additional US Army brigade combat team to deploy:

US surge troops see highway as road to freedom in Afghanistan

Around the highway running south from Kabul [the "ring road'--see map below] the landscape is changing. Where there were patches of desert scrub a few months ago US bases are sprouting, complete with 30ft defensive walls, watch towers and internet relaxation areas. The air hums with the sound of electricity generators and helicopters.

As the first of 21,000 additional surge troops arrive [these troops were actually ordered sent under President Bush--and originally were planned to go to RC East], US commanders have one objective in 2009: to retake the Afghan ring road [that will certainly include operations in RC South north and west of Kandahar, and in Helmand province].

The highway, which runs close to the homes of more than 70 per cent of the population, has been a barometer of the country's fortunes over the past five years.

In 2001 the journey from Kabul to Kandahar took two days. Two years later a $250 million refurbishment cut the time to six hours but since 2004 it has become more dangerous.

By last summer it had become a symbol of the breakdown of law and order spreading from the southwest. Taleban fighters mounted random checkpoints on traffic only 30 miles south of the capital, as did criminal gangs.

On June 24 a convoy supplying Nato bases in the south lost 50 trucks. Seven lorry drivers were beheaded by the road because their vehicles had refrigerator units and were therefore deemed Western [but security was considerably improved later - MC].

Since January the new troops have pushed into the provinces of Logar and Wardak, south of Kabul, in the first stage of the operation to resecure the road.

In Logar and Wardak three forward bases are operational and outposts are appearing around them, pushing out like spokes of a wheel into areas of insurgent influence.

Junior commanders trot out the US mantra of counter-insurgency: “shape the ground, clear the insurgents, hold the ground against reinfiltration, build government security forces and infrastructure”. The concept is not new but the resources that the US is bringing to this part of Afghanistan are.

In Logar, US troops were told that there was no limit to the funds for development projects this year, though all projects must be approved by higher command and are supposed to be co-ordinated with Afghan government efforts. The Times understands that at least $150 million (£104 million) has been initially budgeted for military development projects in the province.

In their first three months in the province the troops claim to have created 2,100 local jobs and cleared three road-building projects which will use almost entirely local labour.

By the end of the year they want to create 7,500 jobs, an objective which is founded on the notion that many insurgents are simply unemployed rather than ideologically driven.

On the ground this means junior army officers with a lot of money...

Yesterday [March 31] the Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud [see Update here] promised to step up cross-border attacks.

“There will be some pretty savage fighting for a while till we can get some of the enemy leadership killed or captured,” Colonel Haight said.

For now, the local governor of Baraki Barak district argues, many people are still too frightened to co-operate with the Americans. “If you have just three Taleban living in a village the whole village will fear them,” Yasin Luddin said.

American commanders will hope that that has begun to change by the end of this year.

Here's a map of the ring road--the road links Kabul/Kandahar/Herat/Mazar-i-Sharif/Kabul.

Map of Road Development (phase 1) (courtesy of Asian Development Bank)
Click to enlarge.

And here's an earlier post on the importance of roads.