The security situation in Afghanistan continues to improve. The Taliban seem now to be a spent force. Their threats to disrupt the 2004 presidential election did not materialise. There had been fears that they might be able to make good their threat to stop people in the south – their ethnic heartland – from participating in the election and then claim the result invalid. But this did not happen. There was a high turnout and the Pashtun president Karzai and his Tajik vice-president are in power with a democratic mandate.
The risk that Afghanistan might slip back into civil war now seems remote. Reconstruction is progressing and Afghans’ daily lives are improving. There has been a sense since 2001 that no-one wants to go back to the past. In addition, most of Afghanistan’s tourist attractions are in Persian-speaking the north of the country which has never been an area at which foreigners have been at risk, unlike the Pashtun-speaking southern provinces. Badakhshan, the area where two of our Expeditions go, has always been safe and never fell to the Taliban, remaining under the control of Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance. I travelled there alone during the civil war in perfect safety.
