US gunships circle as Karzai opens key Afghan road

US helicopter gunships circled and hundreds of troops stood guard yesterday as Afghan President Hamid Karzai opened a refurbished highway symbolising the promise and dangers of postwar reconstruction.

Mr Karzai and his US backers, anxious to show that the Iraq war has not blunted their commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan, have made repair of the badly damaged link between the main cities of Kabul and Kandahar their top development priority.

So it was no coincidence that a ceremony yesterday to mark completion of its first phase coincided with a crucial national meeting to chart a course to presidential elections next year.

"This is one of the best days of our lives in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and bringing back to us the life that we all desire like any other people in the rest of the world," Mr Karzai said.

Dozens of members of the Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, who must vote on a controversial draft constitution that would give the president sweeping powers, watched a clearly delighted Karzai cut a ribbon to open the 482-kilometre route.

The project, the result of a personal commitment by US President George W. Bush to convince Afghans they had not been forgotten, is the biggest single reconstruction scheme in a country with much of its infrastructure ruined by war.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Mr Karzai called Mr Bush with the news. "The president congratulated President Karzai on his efforts to get this important project for the Afghan people completed," Mr McClellan said, adding that they also discussed the Loya Jirga and Saddam Hussein's capture.

Hundreds of US and Afghan soldiers stood guard along the route to the ceremony near the village of Durrani southwest of Kabul, a reminder of repeated Taliban attacks that killed nine people during work on the road and wounded 16.

Three workers were kidnapped, including two Indians who remain in Taliban hands, but US contractors Louis Berger said work had been completed in an unprecedented nine months.

The US Agency for International Development oversaw 389 kilometres, Japan 50 kilometres, while the remaining 43 kilometres to Kabul did not require resurfacing.

The total cost is expected to be $270 million of which $190 million has already been spent.

Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said at the ceremony talks were under way via intermediaries for the release of the two Indian hostages.