Better times, new problems for model Afghan city

HERAT, Afghanistan, June 20 (Reuters) The man who runs the western Afghan province of Herat has many problems, but he says his biggest headache has nothing to do with the Taliban.

The Islamist guerrilla group launches suicide bombings against troops and civilians in the province, but these are not currently at the top of Governor Sayed Hossain Anwary's in-tray.

Nor are the tens of thousands of jobless Afghans streaming into the provincial capital from the nearby Iranian border, where they are being deported as illegal immigrants.

So what problem could be bigger in Herat than Afghanistan's entrenched evils of violence, lawlessness and grinding poverty? ''The biggest problem is the building of the university,'' Anwary told Reuters earnestly at his office in Herat city, an ancient capital close to the Iranian border.

''It is 45 per cent complete. Our students don't have a dormitory or good classes,'' he complained, rubbing his forehead.

Herat is Afghanistan's second-largest city and one of its most successful. With less violence than many other provinces and far more development, the governor has problems that his counterparts in the rest of the country can only dream about.

Herat city, a conquest of Alexander the Great and a jewel of Islamic civilisation, wants to regain some of its former glory. Home to 3 million people, it now has a steady power supply and thriving trade with Iran and another neighbour, Turkmenistan.

Trucks laden with fruits, spices, raisins, almonds and goats' wool rumble over a good, sealed road to the Iranian border about two hours' away. Coming the other way, Iranian trucks bring clothes, household goods and building materials.

Outside Herat city, an industrial park has attracted foreign firms to set up factories employing hundreds of people. In the city, there are wooded public gardens where families picnic beneath tall evergreens. Apartment blocks are also sprouting up.

The city's 14th-century fort has been restored and is surrounded by a teeming medieval bazaar of mud-brick shops where turbaned men with beards tend carts weighed down by ripe tomatoes, red onions, potatoes and cucumbers.

There is also a new five-star hotel, owned by a British woman of Iranian descent who has so far invested about 200,000 dollar of her family savings in the hope that Herat will continue to thrive.

But a closer look at Herat reveals that Afghanistan's model city is struggling to write the next chapter of its success.

'THERE IS NO MONEY' The 60 million dollar university project is half finished and there is no sign of work. Three buildings have been completed, each clad in white and black marble and rising impressively from the dusty construction site, but there is no power or water.

The other buildings are still concrete shells. Desks and chairs are piled up inside one of the unfinished structures. The whole project should have opened this year and stands as one of the most visible symbols of Herat's waning fortunes.

The university and other projects were pushed ahead by the powerful previous governor, Mohammad Ismail Khan, who used taxes collected from the border trade to refurbish the city.

In the first four years after invading US-led forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001, Herat was a boom town.

But his successor, Anwary, complains that customs and income taxes now flow directly to the central government for Kabul and are redistributed among the lesser-developed provinces.

''There is no money,'' said Anwary, who wears a dark suit, no tie, a thick black beard and a permanently furrowed brow.

As he spoke, the lights flickered and his office plunged into darkness for a few moments, as if to drive home his point.

''We have some money from the municipality, which we use for solving our problems but we don't have any budget coming from the central government,'' he said.

The University of Herat has about 6,000 students crammed in to its current campus, about a third of them young women who had been prevented from studying under the Taliban regime.

The dormitory is so crowded that up to 20 students sleep in one room, university president Mohammad Naim Assad said. Some of them recently went on hunger strike over the conditions.

''In the night, they are studying in the middle of the street,'' Assad said through an interpreter.

Asked when the university will be finished, he just shrugs.

Tensions between the United States, which is largely underwriting Afghanistan's security, and Iran may also be taking some of the shine off Herat's success, according to the new five-star hotel's owner and manager, Lailla Salari-Mercier.

''It's really difficult,'' she said.

But she said Herat was still one of the brightest prospects for business in Afghanistan and there was no turning back.

''I am sure there's enough business for this hotel to be very successful,'' she said. ''We have taken the lease for three years and invested a lot of money in the hotel ... We have burnt all the bridges and there's no going back, so it has to be successful.'' REUTERS AGL PM0910