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Khost: Afghanistan is remarkably devoid of proper roads given its size and a population approaching 30 million. There are just 34,000 km of useable roadway in the country, of which less than a quarter is paved.
Better roads are essential not only for the economy but also for security, since police and the army can get more quickly to remote, unstable areas. Paved roads also make it much harder for the Taliban to plant explosives on pot-holed, dirty tracks.
"If we pave roads, there's almost an automatic shift of explosives to other areas because it makes it so much more difficult for the enemy to emplace them. Roads here mean security," says Colonel Pete Johnson, commander of US forces in southeast Afghanistan. Since 2002, the US has built 1,700 kilometres of new paved roads. The latest, much-awaited project is to build a 101 kilometres long road from Khost in southeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
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