Afghan villagers caught in the middle of conflict

By Jon Hemming

KHELE MALAL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Just off Afghanistan's main highway, Taliban insurgents regularly visit the village of Khele Malal. So do Afghan and U.S. forces, leaving local farmers caught between the two sides.

The Taliban and Western-backed Afghan troops are locked in a battle for Highway One, Afghanistan's main trade route that runs south from the capital Kabul to the second city Kandahar before swinging northwest towards Iran.

Securing the highway means securing the villages either side of it through which the Taliban infiltrate from their mountain hideouts to launch ambushes and roadside bomb attacks against Afghan and international forces, or man impromptu checkpoints to demonstrate their presence.

"Security is not good," says village elder Haji Abdul Qader. "Yesterday there was fighting close by. The people are scared."

Khele Malal sits surrounded by groves of fruit trees watered by irrigation ditches from the hillside above. Ripening wheat fields slope down to a rocky river bed below. But just beyond that is the strategically important Highway One.

There are scores of such villages along the road in this, Zabul province, just northeast of Kandahar, and hundreds along its 450 km (280 mile) stretch between Kandahar and Kabul.

Groups of Taliban, sometimes just a few, sometimes up to 40 come to Khele Malal, sometimes every few days, sometimes every few weeks, the villagers say, clearly not wanting to be too specific.

The Taliban demand food and sometimes shelter from the villagers, Afghan and U.S. officers say. But across the south and east the hardline Islamists have also hanged or beheaded dozens accused of acting as informers for foreign forces.