Do Ab, Bamiyan

Do Ab is a village in Bamiyan Province in central Afghanistan. It is located in a pass in a mountainous region North East of Barmiyan town on the Ghandak highway 10 km from the border with Baghlan Province. It has a bazaar, a coal weigh station built in 2007 and a police check point. Do Abe is the centre of a coal mining industry that employed manual methods to extract coal from shafts in sacks. Coal seams visible on the surface are followed deep underground. The shaft roof is unsupported so accidents are common. From 2009/10 a contract was to be let to a Chinese coal mining group to extract the coal using mechanized equipment. Prior to the establishment of the weigh station coal smuggling across the border into Baghan province was rife.

Kiwi 5 patrol of the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team spent time in Do Abe in 2008 training the ANP in order to stop coal smuggling. This area is subject to attacks by roadside bombs.

It was near Do Ab, close to the Ish Pesta ANP check point that a New Zealand soldier was later killed in a roadside bomb blast. After the IED exploded the 3 vehicles were attacked by RPGs and automatic gun fire. This led to a combined NZ/US attack on the Taliban group responsible that resulted in 13 terrorists being killed.

Adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.