Asadabad

Asadabad is on the far eastern edge of Afghanistan, about five miles for Pakistan in the hotly contested Kunar province. The USACE office is located at a small facility, named FOB Wright. The corp doesn't have a lot of construction projects here, the terrain is very rugged and security for construction crews is very problematic. This mountainous area is home to some of the most intense enemy activity in the entire country. The Taliban conducts raids from across the border in Pakistan on a regular basis. They take it easy during the cold months, but are just now coming out of their hidey holes looking for trouble.


Here I am waiting at KIA for the Embassy Helo to Asadabad


And here is the helicopter that took us.

The Asadabad USACE resident office

This is the building where I had my billeting

And here are my quarters

The office slogan, a nice takeoff of the USACE motto, "Building Strong".

Close to being almost right.

Sharana RO had something similar, "We build good"

At the entry to the office, the slogan is all over the place.

Asadabad RO is situated in a valley between two branches of the Hindu Kush mountain range, with the Kunar River flowing nearby. To the west is Afghanistan, to the east is Pakistan, about 5 miles away. The next three pictures are looking west to Afghanistan.

This is a castle that I assume was built by the Soviets, on top of one of the moutains overlooking the valley. I'm sure a drug lord lives there now.

This is an Afghan army outpost on top of another mountain overlooking the valley.

The next four pictures are looking east toward Pakistan. The bad guys like to lob mortars over these mountains from Pakistan into the valley, then scramble back to their caves. My second day here was the only time here in country that I had to head for shelter. The loudspeakers announced incoming and we all heading for a hardened building and hunkered down for about an hour. Turns out Hamid Karzi was visiting and the Taliban used the opportunity to cause trouble. There is outgoing mortars every day, sometimes very loud. My third night here they went on and on and on.

They use blimps as shown below for survellance of surrounding terrain. I was told that the bad guys got a lucky shot off and took out the old one, this must be the new one.

Just over those mountain lies the Pakistani North-west frontier province, a popular hangout for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

This view is looking out over the helipad (only way in, there is no airstrip here) north up the valley.

This is the server room, the reason I have gone to all these places.

Pretty cool jingle truck

A couple of hadji shops, Gucci and Best Buy.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

In the last couple weeks the only FOB farther north in Kunar, FOB Blessing, up in the Korengal river valley, was closed due to increased enemy activity in Nuristan province. That makes FOB Wright more or less the front line when the Taliban start acting up this spring (like right now), and they will be right over the ridge lines to the north and west. I think I'm getting out of here at a good time!