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AS SOMEONE WHO HAS CRISS-CROSSED AFGHANISTAN BY CAR (in 1974, five years prior to Russia's invasion) AND FALLEN IN LOVE WITH COUNTRY AND PEOPLE, THIS HURTS DEEPLY ...
23/08/08 "The Times" -- - The lorry drivers who bring the Pepsi and petrol for Nato troops in Kabul have their own way of calculating the Taleban's progress towards the Afghan capital: they simply count the lorries destroyed on the main roads.
By that measure, and many others, this looks increasingly like a city under siege as the Taleban start to disrupt supply routes, mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and the Soviets two decades ago.
Abdul Hamid, 35, was ferrying Nato supplies from the Pakistani border last month when Taleban fighters appeared on the rocks above and aimed their rocket-launchers at him, 40miles (65km) east of Kabul. “They just missed me but hit the two trucks behind,” he said. “This road used to be safe, but in the last month they've been attacking more and more.”
The road from Kabul to Kandahar is even more treacherous, according to other drivers. “If the Afghan Army isn't there, a fly cannot pass,” said Bashir, a lorry owner, pointing to the scorched shells of three vehicles he retrieved from a Taleban raid on the Kandahar road last week. Of 60 lorries, 13 were destroyed, he said. “Why can't the Americans stop this?”
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AS SOMEONE WHO HAS CRISS-CROSSED AFGHANISTAN BY CAR (in 1974, five years prior to Russia's invasion) AND FALLEN IN LOVE WITH COUNTRY AND PEOPLE, THIS HURTS DEEPLY ...
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