Canadian soldiers sit outside their tent, decorated with lights, at Kandahar Airfield in June 2009. (Jorge Silva/Reuters)

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NATO's biggest military base in southern Afghanistan keeps getting bigger.

Construction crews and cranes are scattered across the sprawling Kandahar Airfield — home to Canada's Afghan mission — as military planners scramble to build more barracks to accommodate an influx of fresh troops.

Most of the newly arriving military personnel are American, part of the 30,000 troop increase ordered last year by U.S. President Barack Obama.

The airfield is currently the temporary home to 21,000 NATO soldiers, support workers and civilian contractors. By later this year, it will expand to house 29,000, making it roughly the same size as Stratford, Ont.

"It started out as a sort of tented camp and we're trying to turn it into a modern city," said Maj. Pete Glaicar, the officer commanding Canada's engineer support group.

Indeed, the Kandahar base, the size of a small city, even has its own subdivisions now, with South Park and Deep South, the two most recent under construction.

It can take a half hour to walk from the market area to some of the sleeping accommodations.

KAF

Almost all of Canada's 2,800 soldiers serving in Afghanistan are based here at KAF, as its become known.

Those soldiers who are out doing the actual fighting are deployed to smaller forward operating bases across Kandahar province, but they return to KAF periodically to have a hot shower and a rest.

Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan is to end in July 2011. But that hasn't stopped Glaicar from expanding Canada's presence at the base.

He is constructing new barracks to house those soldiers who are still living in temporary tents.

Maj. Peter Glaicar, the officer commanding Canada's engineering support group: 'We're trying to turn it into a modern city.' (Derek Stoffel/CBC)

"I'm trying to build things as quickly as I can because there are significant capabilities that we're missing right now," Glaicar said in an interview.

"At the same time, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to tear something down or who I'm going to sell it to or transfer things to once we pull out."

Providing the basics

The expansion of the airfield base brings with it a host of logistical challenges, which is why military planners from each nation with troops at KAF meet every week — a sort-of city planning council.

They discuss such things as how to deal with the thousands of litres of additional sewage every week and how they can generate enough power to keep the lights on amid all the new construction that is taking place.

Feeding hungry soldiers is also a major operation. Every week, about 254,000 meals are served at several dining halls located throughout the base.

Most ingredients are trucked to the airfield through Pakistan.

But fresh produce also arrives by air from the Middle East. It's an expensive process that military commanders are looking to change.

Civilian contractors laboriously lay the base for Kandahar's expansion. (Derek Stoffel/CBC)

"Clearly we'd like to move to be supporting the local population and perhaps buy things locally," says Grp. Capt. Russ Huxtable, the British officer in charge of overall planning here at the base.

"But there's a supply chain issue — security — that we need to address."

The dusty roads that run through the airfield are becoming more clogged, as transport trucks are joined by more troop carriers. Traffic jams involving armoured vehicles and tanks are not uncommon.

"It's becoming a bit of an issue," says Glaicar. "But that's one of the reasons why we have a 20 km/h speed limit.

"If you're going slower you're less likely to get into a traffic accident with another vehicle or with pedestrians as well."

NATO's legacy

About 17 kilometres southeast of Kandahar City, KAF boasts the busiest single runway in the world, handling approximately 260,000 take-offs and landings a year. That's more traffic than at Calgary International Airport.

It was begun in the late 1950s when American contractors built it to serve as a refuelling stop for planes travelling between the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

The well-fortified base was used extensively in the 1980s by the Soviet military as a staging point, after its invasion of Afghanistan.

The busiest single-runway airport in the world. And possibly the dustiest. (Derek Stoffel/CBC)

American forces took control in 2001 after the fall of the Taliban. The base is now under NATO authority.

Most of the barracks and offices on the airfield are temporary structures and will be removed when NATO's mission is declared over.

But many permanent buildings have been constructed, including an air traffic control tower and a state-of-the-art hospital.

Both will be turned over to the Afghans when the airfield is returned to what it once was: Kandahar's busy international airport.

It's a future that is not lost on today's busy engineers. Says Capt. Huxtable: "There is a potential to leave a legacy for Afghanistan with some of the work we produce here."