Afghanistan the road to Khost

The efforts of united states-led coalition forces to secure the wild frontier of afghanistan’s eastern border while winning the hearts and minds of the local population epitomize a larger war that shows little sign of ending. EXECUTIVE traveled to the region and, embedded with u.s. marines, documented the struggle for this rugged land and its people.  Khost Province is, in many ways, a microcosm of Afghanistan. An active insurgency, fuelled by one of the major infiltration routes from Pakistan,  faces up to a strong coalition and Afghan security presences amid tribal tensions and rivalries, feudal warlords, assassinations and widespread corruption, all set within an inhospitable landscape largely carved from vast and forbidding mountains. It is close to the very roots of Afghanistan’s current war, with some of those who hijacked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11,