U.S. notes opening of main Afghan road

WARDAK PROVINCE, Afghanistan – Attack helicopters circled overhead, snipers peeked from rooftops, a trench had been dug alongside the reception tent, and all traffic was halted for several miles in each direction.

But despite the intensive counterterrorist precautions, the mood and message of Tuesday’s ceremony to mark the rebuilding of 310 miles of highway between the cities of Kabul and Kandahar followed a determinedly upbeat script.

“We are standing on the road to Afghanistan’s future – a road to national unity, prosperity and peace,” U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told several hundred Afghan officials and guests gathered at a windy roadside spot about 30 miles south of Kabul, the capital, where construction began on the mostly U.S.-funded project in late 2002.

Two miles north, one sign of progress was unmistakable. Hundreds of crammed cargo trucks and passenger vans, their drivers waiting impatiently at gunpoint for the ceremony to end, lined a road once nearly impassable because of its choking dust and axle-cracking craters.

Khalilzad noted that President Bush had made the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s major highway system a top priority for assisting the country, which is emerging from two decades of war and civil conflict. He said the completion of this first segment, which cost about $190 million, was a sign of the administration’s commitment to “helping Afghanistan for as long as it takes to succeed.” Japan also funded part of the roadwork.

Resurfacing has cut travel time between the two Afghan cities from 16 hours to about six, helping knit the country and its devastated economy back together.

But he and other speakers pointed out that the Kabul-Kandahar road had been rebuilt at considerable human cost. Since early this year, a number of people connected to the project – including engineers, land mine clearers and highway police – have been killed, injured or kidnapped by suspected Islamic terrorists.

The opening was good news for the government, but the absence of 60 delegates stalled debate at the constitutional convention, already proceeding at a snail’s pace on its third day.

About 500 delegates have so far elected a chairman and four deputies, but have accomplished little else. They were expected to divide into 10 groups for closed-door discussions today of the 160-article draft presented by Karzai’s interim government.

Three rockets slammed into the capital early Tuesday, but they landed far from the site of the loya jirga, or grand council, and caused no casualties.