Six years after the fall of the Taliban, Nato claims the war is being won. But as Peter Beaumont discovered in his journey across the country, the West is in danger of losing the peace as millions suffer the fallout from social and economic collapse.
Unemployed day labourers gather in kabul in the hope of getting work. Photograph: Antonio Olmos
In a brickmakers' hut at the edge of Afghanistan's capital Kabul, Samiullah, his only name, washes his face and hands. They are black from feeding the moori - the glowing openings in the kiln's surface - with coal. The hut is a bare room shared by four men. Musafer they are called: single men who live together. There is bedding and phone numbers are scratched into the wall. A blackened kettle has been cooked on one of the red-hot vents.
Samiullah is 23. His family farm is in the village of Sohrabi, an hour's drive, he says, from Kabul. Samiullah has not seen it or his family recently. They are living in Peshawar in Pakistan. 'In Afghanistan everything is in chaos,' says Samiullah. 'Remember what happened in Kabul,' he says, referring to an attempt to kill President Hamid Karzai. 'So my home is in Peshawar. I come here and work for three or four months, then I go home again. I'll go in two weeks to give them money. Then I'll be back.'
Afghanistan's problems spring from 'lies and promises that were not kept. There is no security. Everything is in disorder. And the poor are no better off than they were before. They have to take out loans that they cannot return.
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