Let’s go to Farah
Farah and Nimruz are two provinces which are particularly difficult to reach in Afghanistan: they make a desert border with Iran, south-west. The highway which passes through, the Highway One, links up Herat, the big western city to Kabul the capital, through Kandahar in the south. Afghan authorities are trying to keep open this road that they control only partially. The western section of the Highway One passes through districts held by insurgents and makes a front line, along Iranian border on more than two hundred kilometers.
I still keep in mind when our fixer gave us a call a morning at the hotel: “Are you ready to go to Farah?”
Hidden under our burqas, accompanied by his wife and children, escorted then housed by police, we leave for Farah. Starts a three days road trip in the Afghan Far West… Initially scheduled for one day, the trip is going to last three days. I took all my memory cards and batteries, but I don’t have my charger with me and I know I will have to count my pictures, to restrict myself, while it is all the essence of Afghanistan which is offered to me!
US Marines are struggling to train a traffic police, under-equipped. An US contractor, meanwhile, is trying somehow to communicate with his Afghan counterparts. The Mullah Serajuddin, a Taliban commander in the region, says he receives help from Muslim countries, including neighboring Iran. He says that it is not “official”, but intelligence services are providing arms and leads future fighters in camps in Iran. The information is confirmed by the Deputy Governor, barricaded in his office in Delaram. The smugglers are complaining about not having a choice: there is no work, what could they do other than to help those who want to work on the other side of the border?
I take the last picture at the Herat city gate, on the way back, and my camera off at the same time, my batteries flat.