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ECC, Inc. in Burlingame, CA received a $13.2 million firm-fixed price contract for design and construction of facilities for the Afghan National Police Border Police Zone. Work will be performed in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, and is expected to be complete by July 1, 2009. Five bids were solicited on April 23/08, and 4 bids were received. The U.S. Army Engineer District, Afghanistan manages the contract (W917PM-07-D-0015).
Mazar-e-Sharif is located in northern Afghanistan, near the border with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. While there are a good number of Uzbeks among the foreign jihadis in Afghanistan, the Uzbek border is not their major transit point. Most come from fifedoms within al-Qaeda’s enclaves in Pakistan, which were set up by al-Qaeda and the Taliban after friction between foreign jihadis and local tribes flared into serious violence. Nevertheless, securing Afghanistan’s borders is an important job for the civil government, and allowing any obvious weak points is an invitation to have them exploited.