...
We can see the path taken is directed from Europe instead of direct route.
Update Jan 2015
We updated the earlier case study to illustrate the move from GEOS links to terrestrial links for 2 of the 3 hosts PingER monitors in Pakistan. The minimum RTTs measured from SLAC to Afghanistan for these three hosts are shown below. It is seen that in late 2013 and 2014 www.multinet.af and mail.neds.af moved to terrestrial links while www.mod.gov.af continues to use a GEOS link.
The route from SLAC appears to jump from the Bay Area to Frankfurt, then to Karachi and thence to Afghanistan.
| Overall route | Karachi - Afghanistan | Traceroute |
|---|---|---|
 |  |  |
Conclusion
This information above tells us that adding more infrastructure towards northern region would significantly add to the performance on network connectivity in Afghanistan. On a side note, direct links with neighboring countries can be established to make the regional traffic faster.