Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and their various backers, have all invested millions of dollars in various infrastructure projects which involve Afghanistan and the attacks will worry them.

Local villagers in northern Afghanistan said the Taliban launched rockets and fired machine guns at a pylon, during a gun battle with government forces, running from Turkmenistan into the bordering Faryab province.

The Pajhwork news agency quoted a regional police chief as saying that Taliban fighters had “fired three rockets at the power pylon in Gorzad area. After they failed to hit the pylon, they opened machinegun fire at the transmission line and cut it.”

Analysts told The Conway Bulletin the Taliban were responsible for damaging the powerline, although they may not have been behind the attack on a line running from Uzbekistan last month.

Thomas Ruttig, director of the Afghanistan Analyst Network, said that the powerline may have been accidentally damaged during a gun- battle. “The Taliban have denied any role [in the disruption] and stated that they do not attack infrastructure that belong to The Nation,” he said.

The attacks, though, will worry Central Asian governments. Days before the latest attack, Turkmen- President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov ordered an increase of security at construction sites for the TAPI gas pipeline, a project designed to pump Turkmen gas across Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.