Herat - Khwaja Abdullah Ansari International Airport — Guzara, Afghanistan

Named for Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the eleventh-century Sufi mystic and poet whose shrine at nearby Gazargah still draws pilgrims, HEA serves one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities along the historic Silk Road. Herat's Friday Mosque, with its shifting mosaic tilework, and its centuries of Persian-influenced art and architecture set the city apart culturally from much of Afghanistan, sitting as it does close to the Iranian border and long tied economically and linguistically to Persian-speaking neighbors. Decades of conflict have repeatedly disrupted civil aviation across Afghanistan, and Herat's airport has seen its role shift between military and limited commercial use depending on the security and political situation at any given time. When operational, flights connect Herat to Kabul and to a handful of regional destinations, offering a faster alternative to long overland routes across Afghanistan's mountainous and often unsafe interior.