Insurgency is shifting money from reconstruction to security in the rest of the country, but in the Panjshir Valley, the story is quite different.
Slashed across the side of a rugged mountain like the sign of Zorro, the Z Road started as a simple $59,000 US project to put a radio tower atop a small peak in the Hindu Kush, so people in the remote Panjshir Valley could for the first time pick up commercial radio from Kabul, about 60 dusty, bone-jolting miles away.
After road crews conquered the mountain's 270-foot face last November, other forces took over. By the new year, private companies had extended the road to the next hilltop, two-thirds of a mile away and 640 feet higher, for a bank of cellphone towers. Then came another half-mile extension to the next peak for a TV tower, then plans for a wind farm and, in September, a series of switchbacks down the far side of the range to give villages in the next valley their first road to the outside.
This is the way reconstruction in Afghanistan was supposed to be. A little bit of US pump priming, combined with profit motive and human need, would be harnessed by a liberated population.
It hasn't always worked that way. Instead, Afghanistan is besieged by a growing insurgency that is shifting US money and manpower from reconstruction to security, undermining vital road, electricity, school and other projects that are designed to extend the authority of the national government and win hearts and minds.
But in Afghanistan's famed Panjshir Valley — a remote, sparsely populated mountain region that is almost entirely ethnic Tajik — an unprecedented synergy among the local government, the people and US soldiers has helped spark a development boom that is modernising and transforming the valley.
"This is the safest part of Afghanistan," said Mansour Azimi Panjshir, 23, a construction worker. "There's new building all over. We have bridges now, wells, new schools, water — everything looks good."
"It's 100 per cent Tajik, homogeneous and very conservative, and it's been helped by its remoteness," said a UN official. The US Agency for International Development and a special squad from the United States known as a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) "have good collaboration with the local government, and that has helped a lot in terms of capacity building and bringing dynamism into the valley."
The PRT — one of 25 in Afghanistan — is the main vehicle for coordinating the US reconstruction efforts here. It has about 40 members from the Air Force, Army, Navy and Army Corps of Engineers, as well as representatives from USAID and the Departments of State and Agriculture, and several translators. The team's bases are protected by local Afghan guards.
"We are in the world's largest neighbourhood watch programme," quipped Air Force Lt Col Christopher J. Luedtke, 42, commander of the team. That luxury has allowed the unit to focus on development issues instead of security, permitting it to mentor local Afghans in planning, budgeting, modern construction techniques, maintenance and other areas that should help them build similar projects on their own and sustain them long-term.
In addition to the Z Road, which helped bring regular telephone service to the valley six months ago, the Panjshir PRT has been involved in about 90 other projects worth more than $8 million in the two years since the team was created. USAID has pumped an additional $32 million into projects, including $20 million to build the province's first paved road, which snakes 30 miles along the banks of the Panjshir River on the valley's floor. The road opened five months ago and has cut driving time between the provincial capital, Bazarak, and Kabul from five hours to two, dramatically reducing the cost of transporting crops to the market and enticing more business into the valley, residents said.
"Now, we can go early to Kabul and come back in the same day," said Abdul Gafour, a Panjshiri truck driver. "And having the telephone is solving thousands of problems."
Teresa Morales, 37, a civilian with the Army Corps of Engineers from Corvallis, Oregon, stands toe-to-toe with Afghan builders, explaining proper construction techniques, such as how to mix and pour cement, with an authority that leaves them looking dumbfounded.
"She's taught us a lot about construction that we can use in the future," said Feda Mohammad, 38, the head of a local construction company.
