Afghanistan's Highway 1 bedeviled by danger

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http://www.startribune.com/world/12268426.html

Police corruption and insurgent attacks sow fear and make traveling many sections of the road a lottery.

By C.J. CHIVERS, New York Times

Last update: December 8, 2007 - 4:01 PM

SALAR, AFGHANISTAN

The ruined Afghan police truck smoldered on the highway in the village bazaar, flames rising from its cargo bed. The village was silent. Its residents had hidden themselves ahead of a U.S. patrol.

The remains of a second truck, a tanker, sat on its wheel rims 100 yards to the north. To the south, another patrol was removing two other freshly burned tankers from the highway, clearing the lanes so traffic might pass.

The Americans examined the police truck. Holes marked where bullets had passed through. The front passenger door was gone; a rocket-propelled grenade had struck and exploded there.

This vehicle graveyard on Highway 1, roughly 50 miles south of Kabul, the Afghan capital, symbolizes both the ambitions and frustrations in Afghanistan six years after the Taliban were chased from power.