Download
Afghanistan diary: The scars of war
03:08

It's a four-hour journey across 140 kilometers from Kandahar to Lashkar Gar, the capital of Helmand Province. Without much traffic and check points, vehicles can't go fast on the broken roads. In the last few decades, Taliban soldiers dug holes under the roads and put mines inside to try and explode government vehicles. Shallow pits can be found every few hundred meters. They're similiar to the ones on the Kabul-Kandahar highway, known as the "highway of death." There are also damaged check points along the way. We visited one of them and had a short chat with the Taliban guards. After a tour around the check point, soldiers told us to look at a wire pole on the opposite side of the road. Hundreds of bullet holes can be seen on the surface of the cement pole from top to bottom. While the U.S. occupation has ended, no one knows how long it will take to heal the wounds of war.

Search Trends