The door that once led to a family room now faces nothing but the void. For Syed Murtaza Sadar, a 25-year-old business owner in Kabul, this empty space represents the cost of Afghanistan’s capital city’s infrastructure ambitions. Two months before speaking to reporters, municipal authorities arrived to expropriate his home, the barber shop and public bath his family had operated for years, and ordered him to finish demolishing it himself. Over the past four and a half years, Kabul’s Taliban-led municipal government has expropriated 11,278 properties across the capital to make way for wider roads, constructing roughly 450 kilometers (280 miles) of roadway as part of a modernization campaign that is rapidly reshaping the city.
The project addresses a critical infrastructure need—Kabul’s narrow streets are severely congested—but the cost falls heavily on property owners, who receive compensation at rates set by the municipality and are given roughly three months’ notice before demolition.
The Cost of Modernization
Syed Murtaza Sadar was forced to demolish his own home. The 25-year-old had inherited the property in Kabul’s commercial district, along with the barber shop and public bath his family had operated for years below the residence. The business employed about 25 people. When municipal authorities arrived two months prior, they ordered the expropriation—and told him to finish the job himself.
“This was our house and now I am destroying it with my own hands,” Sadar said. “It will be very difficult for us.”
His family is far from alone. Over the past four and a half years, Kabul’s Taliban-led municipal government has expropriated 11,278 properties across the capital to make way for wider roads, part of an infrastructure modernization campaign that is rapidly reshaping the city’s landscape. The scale is considerable: roughly 450 kilometers (280 miles) of roads have been constructed, with another 233 projects planned for 2026.
The initiative builds on earlier work. Years before Taliban rule, Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government had drafted much of the modernization plan, but it stalled amid delays, corruption, and the Taliban insurgency. When the Taliban seized power in 2021, municipal authorities revived the projects.
The Process: Notice, Compensation, and Demolition
Property owners receive about three months’ notice before demolition begins. The municipality then sets compensation rates. Over the past year, municipal authorities paid more than 1.2 billion afghanis—roughly $18.6 million—in compensation, according to Naimatullah Barakzai, Kabul municipality’s representative for cultural affairs.
The projects are funded entirely through municipal revenue. According to Barakzai, Kabul’s municipality has raised more than 28 billion afghanis (about $434 million) over the past four and a half years. For 2026, authorities have allocated over 1.9 billion afghanis ($29 million) for the 233 planned projects, according to Mohammad Qasim Afghan, the municipality’s head of planning.
Owners have little choice in the matter. In Sadar’s neighborhood, demolition crews tore down the front sections of buildings, then authorities told owners they must finish the job. Sadar is now living in rented accommodation, eating into savings while awaiting compensation that would theoretically allow him to rebuild.
“If the government gives us money, then God willing, I will be able to go back to work and I will be able to buy a house or build a house for myself,” he said.
Employment and Infrastructure Benefits
The construction projects are creating employment in a country with widespread poverty. At the heavily congested Baraki intersection, a Turkish-designed flyover and underpass project—valued at 1.5 billion afghanis ($23 million)—is employing 500 workers, both skilled and unskilled. Work proceeds around the clock, seven days a week. The 470-meter underpass is 80 percent complete, according to project manager Obaidullah Elham.
For residents like Sadar, the modernization addresses a genuine infrastructure crisis. The existing roads, with a single lane in each direction, are so congested that traveling any significant distance can consume an hour, he noted.
When Even the Dead Must Move
The human cost extends beyond displacement of the living. In Kabul’s Qala-e-Khater neighborhood, part of a graveyard that has held residents’ remains for about 200 years is being cleared for the new road. Graves have been exhumed and remains relocated across the street to another section of the cemetery.
Abdul Wadood Alokozay, 21, said his grandfather was among those disinterred. His extended family owned three properties in the area—a girls’ school and two homes. All were expropriated and demolished. The family received more than $13,000 in total compensation and has since constructed a new three-story home on other land they owned, overlooking the former site.
“At first our family were all sad for this, that we lost our house,” Alokozay said. “Even harder was tearing it down ourselves, after living there for more than two decades.”
Community representative Shah Faisal Alokozay acknowledged the disruption but emphasized the project’s importance. “It’s a very important road, connecting east and north Kabul,” he said. “So it is very important for the community.”