Afghanistan's campaign to clear millions of landmines left by the Soviet invasion and ensuing civil war is in danger of stalling, as international aid slumps and militant violence makes more of the country inaccessible. The mammoth task, vital to the country's economic recovery, was to have been completed by 2013, and nearly four fifths of the country is now considered mine free. But slowing progress means the deadline set by the international community was pushed back 10 years, and even that looks a tall order in a country that remains one of the most heavily mined in the world. "The longer these minefields last, the higher the human cost," said Mohammad Shafiq Yosufi, chief of the Afghan government's Directorate of Mine Action Coordination. "They kill and maim people, prevent economic growth, investment, and tourism, hurt livelihoods and cause psychological fear that cannot end until they are gone."

Nearly 600 square km of old minefields and battlefields remain to be cleared, encompassing more than 3,000 known sites and affecting 1,570 communities, according to the United Nations. One such area lies near the Salang Pass, some 80 km (50 miles) north of Kabul, where earlier this month mine clearers dressed in bulky blue kevlar armor and protective face masks lumbered slowly across fields waving metal detectors before them. When they hear a warning beep, they painstakingly scrape layers of soil and rock away by hand until the metal object is revealed. Sometimes it is an old drink can. Here it is more likely to be a rusty mortar shell or old Soviet land mine. "I choose this profession to serve my country and feed my family," said Abdul Wakil, a de-miner working for a company contracted by the government. Standing on a hill where any step could be his last, Wakil shrugs off the risk. "There are dangers, but we have to cope with it to provide a better environment for our people."

Recently the crew made a potentially deadly find: a 30-year-old landmine connected by trip wire to a grenade. From April to June, at least 28 people were killed and 53 wounded by landmines and other unexploded ordnance in Afghanistan, according to the government. That is sharply down from the average of 507 casualties per quarter recorded in 2001, when the Taliban regime was toppled by a U.S.-led military operation. But it is an increase over the same period last year, when 38 civilians were killed or injured. Nearly 80 percent of casualties from landmines and other explosives this year were children, the United Nations said. "It is like one war on top of another," said Abdul Qadir Halimi, a liaison between the Afghan government and demining organizations, as he dropped a shattered hunk of metal back into a pile of grenades, mortar shells, and bullets that testify to ferocious battles that haunt these hills. Demining has always been a dangerous job, but increasing insurgent violence around the country has meant clearance operations are limited to fewer areas, and de-miners face more risks.