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| In [[Afghanistan]], the '''Shomali Plain''', also called the '''Shomali Valley''', is a plateau north of [[Kabul]], approximately 30 km wide and 80 km long. Once, it was an extremely fertile area, but it became a desert, considered by the UN Mine Action Center as one of the world's most [[mine (land warfare)|landmine-ridden]] areas. <ref>{{citation | | In Afghanistan, the '''Shomali Plain''', also called the '''Shomali Valley''', is a plateau north of [[Kabul]], approximately 30 km wide and 80 km long. It is mostly agricultural, but it provides the only year-round and all-weather means of access to the country's northern provinces. From Kabul, the road runs via [[Charikar]] through [[Parwan Province]], and then into the [[Hindu Kush]] mountains via the Salang Tunnel. |
| | url = http://www.one-step-beyond.de/en/countries/afghanistan/topics/afghanistan_topics_shomali-plain.html
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| | One Step Beyond: An Art Project Reporting on landmines and their victims
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| | author = Lukas Einsele
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| | contribution = Shomali Plain}}</ref> Today, it is one of the relatively few prospering areas of Afghanistan. The road is militarily necessary, and has been rebuilt and security is in place, although the same urgency does not exist elsewhere in the country. <ref>{{citation
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| | author = Patrick Cockburn
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| | title = Letter from Kabul: Eight years after the war to overthrow the Islamist regime, one part of Afghanistan is beginning to flourish again – but it's very much the exception
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| | date = May 3, 2009 | journal = Independent (U.K.)
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| | url = http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-a-land-darkened-by-the-shadow-of-the-taliban-1678131.html}}</ref>
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| From Kabul, the road runs to [[Charikar]] and [[Bagram Airport]] in [[Parwan Province]], and then into the [[Hindu Kush mountains]] to the Salang Tunnel. The tunnel provides the only year-round, all-weather access to the north of Afghanistan. | |
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| When the Taliban retreated from it in 1997, they poisoned wells, cut down trees, and destroyed the irrigation system of what was a largely [[Tajik]] area. <ref name=Rashid2000>{{citation
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| | author = Ahmed Rashid
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| | title = Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
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| | publisher = Yale University Press
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| | year = 2000
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| | isbn = 0300089023}}, p. 62</ref> In the [[Afghanistan War (2001-)]], the [[Northern Alliance]] was directed to take the Plain after it secured the supply routes from the north, and wait for an international peacekeeping force to move into [[Kabul]]. They did not wait, however, and occupied Kabul without major problems.
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| As of 2004, the [[United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees]] has put in 300 water points and resettled 14,000 families. <ref>{{citation
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| | title = Returnees help Afghanistan's Shomali Plain to flourish again
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| | publisher = United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
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| | date = July 28, 2004
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| | url = http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/JMAN-63BJBA?OpenDocument}}</ref>
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| ==References== | | ==References== |
| {{reflist}} | | {{reflist}}[[Category:Suggestion Bot Tag]] |
