Ariana's reach is expanding

A Boeing 727 left Kabul on Monday for Moscow, with a stopover in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.

"We've had a lot of people, a lot of businessmen, asking for this," Mohammad Ajmail, a senior official at Ariana, told the Associated Press.

The airline, which lost much of its fleet during the US-led military campaign to oust the Taleban regime, has now added Moscow to a list of destinations which includes New Delhi, Dubai, Tehran, Islamabad, Istanbul and Frankfurt.

"We wanted to expand our flight operations and this is another positive step in that direction," said Mr Ajmail.

Ariana plans one flight a week to Moscow and hopes to follow it up with new services to the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.

Next week, it plans to begin flights to Urumchi, capital of China's northwest Xinjiang province, Mr Ajmail said.

India has indicated it will consider flying into Afghanistan if Pakistan lifts a ban on overflights by its planes.

New lease of life

American bombers decimated the Afghan carrier's fleet in late 2001.

Washington never replaced the two Boeing 727s and four Antonov An-24s destroyed in those attacks but India has since donated three Boeing 727s.

Long before the bombing, the airline was already in trouble, its planes banned from making international flights by United Nations sanctions imposed in 1999.

The link to Moscow was lost in 1996, shortly before the Taleban came to power.

Despite the bitter legacy of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russia has been involved in the reconstruction of modern Afghanistan.

The new air link was officially agreed upon at talks last month, when the Afghan civil aviation and tourism minister visited Moscow.