The City Of Kandahar Has Dramically Changed In The Past 2 Decades

Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post: The last time I saw Kandahar, it was a remote Taliban bastion. How that’s changed.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – What a difference two decades make.

When I last visited this southern Afghan city – the cradle of the Taliban insurgency - I flew in on a plane chartered by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The airstrip was tiny, as was the airport. The city was a backwater, with no more than a few hundred thousand people, if that. It was the summer of 1996, and brutally hot.

And oh yes, the Taliban controlled the city – and much of Afghanistan.

When I landed again in Kandahar earlier this month, I flew in on a commercial airline that touched down on a large airstrip rivaling any in the West. The airport, with its curved arches and manicured gardens, had become an international one. As they walked out of the airport, visitors were greeted by ostriches in an enclosure – yes, you read that correctly – that had been donated by a wealthy businessman. The city had greatly expanded, its population up nearly ten-fold.

WNU Editor: We are always getting doom and gloom reports from Afghanistan .... so here is a positive one.