On any Friday, when the Afghan weekend begins, dozens of drivers gather in the Kandahar desert to charge their SUVs up steep ochre dunes, kicking up rooster tails of sand to the delight of spectators.

Sometimes they don't make it, and have to carefully roll down backwards as other 4x4s surge past just an arm's length away. Accidents are rare but not unheard of.

It's an anarchic ballet where drivers can stomp on the gas and let loose not far from the historic bastion of the ruling Taliban.

"This desert is half of Kandahar's beauty, its charm lies here in the dunes," said Abdul Qadir, a 23-year-old shopkeeper from Kandahar, the country's second-largest city.

Like scores of other men -- no women are allowed under the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam -- Qadir was relishing a party

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