A Breakdown in Transporting Supplies to Afghanistan

[maximus]

Not bad news at all. I think that Pakistan ought to distance itself from the illegitimate WoT as much as possible. Let them fight their own little dirty wars. Pakistan has already enough on its plate.

 

[SurvivoR]

Russia has offered alternate supply route. Seems Russia wants US bogged down in Afghanistan.

 

[Awesome]

Let them go, the quicker we are out of the equation the quicker we'll see normalcy return to Pakistan.

 

[ajpirzada]

i really dont want US or NATO using pakistani land to get their supplies which they then use to kill our muslim brothers and sisters in afghanistan and also in our tribal areas. tell me out of the total kill they make everday, how many of them are actually taliban. when the gov wont take any steps to stop US strikes iin pakistan, then its quite obvious for pakistanis to rise up and that becomes necessary if u r a pathan.
its also gud coz afghan talibans would lik to target nato supply line and for that they will have to go up north and therefore aways from ourside of the border.

btw i am of the view that our gov is not tryin to stop these attacks deliberately. they are using this card to tell US not to carry out any more drone attacks. my brother went to peshawar lik a month back and he was sayin situation is under gov control. also areas around peshawar were cleared from militants few weeks back and now security forces are in control of those areas. though small incidents do happen but blowin up 100 of those veichles and that also at the cargo terminal is not a joke.

 

[SSGPA1]

This is good news. This will certainly bring some calm to our borders.

Is US media now going to claim that the Talibans are from Central Asia?

So in Feb 09 or March 09, their will be a lot of Taliban activity along the Western borders of Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan is a Sunni majority country where people speak Darri (widely spoken in Afghanistan) besides Turkmen.

Another possibility is an attack on Eastern and Western borders of Pakistan. I don't know who would attack on the Western border but I think it will be India supported openly by Afghanistan and covertly by US and Nato.

Indian airbase in Central Asia and 7000 plus infantry in Afghanistan can launch a minor attack on Western border so that Pakistan's resources are divided. Major attack will happen from the Eastern border.

In the name of saving region from a bigger catastrophe, US and NATO might attack Pakistan's Nuclear arsenal.

This is a hypothesis and some may call it paranoia but I am sure that GoP is looking at all scenarios.

 

[Imran Khan]

TTP owns attacks on NATO supplies, warns of more assaults

KHAR: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omar on Sunday claimed responsibility for the recent attacks on NATO supplies. Talking over telephone with reporters, Omar said the arson attacks on NATO supplies in Peshawar and Khyber Agency were a reaction to the United States drone attacks in the Tribal Areas. Attacks on NATO shipments would increase if the US troops did not halt attacks in the Tribal Areas, he said, adding the TTP would cut the supply routes to NATO and international forces stationed in Afghanistan.NATO has started looking for alternatives to the main supply route through Pakistan after the Taliban torched some 300 trucks laden with supplies, including military vehicles, in five attacks in the last week alone. hasbanullah khan

 

[Al-zakir]

:The Daily Star: Internet Edition


Afp, Peshawar

Haulage companies in Pakistan have stopped delivering to foreign troops in Afghanistan after a major deterioration in security along the key supply route, an association official said Monday.

The decision follows a series of major raids by suspected Taliban militants on international military supply depots in northwest Pakistan in the past two weeks in which hundreds of Nato and US-led coalition vehicles were destroyed.

"We have stopped supplies to foreign forces in Afghanistan from today, Mohammad Shakir Afridi, president of the Khyber Transport Association, told AFP Monday in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

"We have around 3,500 trucks, tankers and other vehicles, we are the major suppliers to Afghanistan, transporting about 60-70 percent of goods," said Afridi, whose association represents transport companies in the area.

He said the decision followed a worsening in law and order along the 55-kilometre (35-mile) stretch between Peshawar, where the military supplies are stored, and the Khyber pass, which links Pakistan with Afghanistan.

The bulk of the supplies and equipment required by Nato and US-led forces battling the Taliban insurgency is shipped to Pakistan's largest port, Karachi in the south.

From there, the containers of food, fuel, vehicles and munitions are taken by truck to depots outside Peshawar before being transported through Pakistan's restive tribal areas to Afghanistan via the Khyber pass.

But the fabled road passes through the heart of Pakistan's tribal zone, a hideout for militants since the ousting of Afghanistan's Taliban regime at the end of 2001.

Afridi said drivers had been putting their lives at risk by transporting goods through the lawless area.

"The situation is extremely bad for us," he said. "We have nothing to do with politics, we want peace."

Nato downplayed the development, saying its contractors were operating as normal.

"We believe there's a strike at Khyber Transport Association, but it is currently not affecting Isaf," said Captain Mark Windsor, chief public affairs officer with the Nato-led force.

"We continue to monitor the impact of that. It is not our only means of (getting) supplies."

 

[Jihad]

Yes indeed!
We should think about these truck-drivers, who are infact seriously risking their lives to bring the goods and materials to where they are needed.
How well are they protected?
Any escorts coming along with them? I have no idea.
If someone could enlighten me some more about this, much appreciated.

 

[Silverfalcon]

Pakistanis should not give any sort of assistance to the dark horses called NATO in any way possible.
Even at individual levels , Nato should not be supported.

 

[jeypore]

The president of the Khyber Transport Union in Pakistan announced Monday that his union is boycotting the transportation of military goods and supplies for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The president, Shakirullah Afridi, put it rather pointedly: “If all the countries of NATO cannot control the situation in Afghanistan, how can escorts from [Pakistan’s paramilitary] Frontier Corps ensure our safety?”

Afridi’s complaint epitomizes one of the mounting problems for U.S. and NATO operations in Afghanistan. Last week, Taliban fighters attacked shipping depots in Peshawar, the last major city in Pakistan before the Khyber Pass, which leads to Kabul in Afghanistan. Afridi’s truck drivers are on strike not for more money, but because they are not looking to sacrifice their lives for the transportation of U.S. and NATO military supplies.

It is not as though this is merely a disruption of one of many supply lines into Afghanistan. At least 70 percent of the supplies for U.S. and NATO forces operating in Afghanistan arrive through the Pakistani port of Karachi and are shipped by truck through Quetta to Kandahar and through Peshawar to Kabul. Complicating matters further, an even higher percentage of military fuel is refined in Pakistan before being shipped by tankers over the road.

While NATO spokesmen continue to insist that operations are not being affected, the Pentagon is hardly unaware of the potential problem. Though a search for alternative routes has been under way for some time, and has accelerated recently, Pakistan remains the single most important logistics route for the Afghan campaign.

This is not by accident. It is by far the quickest and most efficient overland route to the open ocean; airlifting the massive amount of supplies necessary to sustain operations in Afghanistan is simply too costly and impractical for a number of reasons. Some additional fuel and supplies come in through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but these alternatives have not yet been meaningfully expanded, they entail much longer distances to ports accessible to ocean-going shipping, and they come with the added disadvantage of increased (though not necessarily decisive) Russian influence.

Two factors are compounding the deteriorating Pakistani situation. First is the impending surge of some four U.S. brigade combat teams (as part of the roughly 20,000-strong addition currently being discussed for 2009) into Afghanistan. At a time when both U.S. and NATO troop numbers are surging and operations (and thus logistical needs) are intensifying, existing lines will be pressured and the United States and NATO will need to look to alternative routes to prevent Pakistan from becoming more important as a supply line, or even to reduce reliance on it as the single most important logistics route for the entire campaign.

The second issue is Pakistan’s shrinking military capacity. Washington was pressuring Islamabad to strengthen internal security operations along the Afghan border and to expand security for logistics convoys even before the Nov. 26 Mumbai attacks. With additional U.S. and NATO troops badly needed for operations in Afghanistan proper, it was only with Pakistan’s cooperation that the border could be controlled and supply lines protected.

In the wake of the Mumbai attacks, however, India is pressuring Pakistan to project its military force into Pakistani-administered Kashmir. Military pressure from New Delhi inevitably leaves Islamabad feeling insecure about its border with India —- especially in Punjab, where the Pakistani demographic, agricultural and industrial core is geographically vulnerable to overwhelming Indian conventional military power -— and thus less concerned about its border with Afghanistan.

In short, even before the Mumbai attacks, it was unclear whether Islamabad had the capacity to carry out the military operations Washington demanded. Now, in the aftermath of those attacks, Pakistan almost certainly lacks the military capability to fulfill all of its defense and security obligations. It is hard to see a way in which the security of U.S. and NATO supply lines in and through Pakistan will not erode further as the crisis intensifies. That erosion is taking place at just the moment when Washington must lean more heavily upon and demand more from the Pakistanis, and it is not at all clear that the available logistical alternatives will be anything close to sufficient —- especially in the near term.
Free Preview of Members-Only Content | Stratfor

 

[ejaz007]

US has not been able to stop attacks on its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nato has failed to stop attacks on its troops. US has not been able to control Iraq and Afghanistan except a few cities.

India has failed to stop attacks on its troops in Kashmir and other parts of India.

If this logic is used then these countries also don't have the capacity and capability to fullfil their defense and security obligations.

 

[pkpatriotic]

NATO Supply Route Imperiled As Pakistani Truckers Refuse To Carry Goods
By Abubakar Siddique
Wednesday, December 17, 2008

As a truck driver, Gul Mohmamad regularly ferries containers full of food and other supplies along the Khyber Pass route to Western forces in the Afghan capital.

It's an increasingly dangerous occupation, with Taliban forces attacking trucks on the road and increasingly in the terminals.

"We don't have any security here. When we are parked here outside the terminal we are afraid of being attacked," Mohmamad says. "We have the same fears and problems when we are driving on the roads. That is why we cannot perform our duties properly."

In response to the increased danger, an alliance of some 3,500 truck and fuel tanker owners announced on December 15 that it would no longer make deliveries for NATO along the alliance's main overland supply route.

Under heavy protection, some 190 fuel tankers and supply trucks traveling from Pakistan successfully crossed into Afghanistan on December 15. But the two convoys traveling through the narrow and treacherous Khyber Pass may be among the last.

The head of the Peshawar-based Khyber Transport Association, Mohammad Shakir Afridi, told RFE/RL the attacks were the main reason behind the decision.

"We don't have any security here. When we are parked here outside the terminal we are afraid of being attacked"

"Our vehicles and lives are in danger. Every truck we own values about 4 million rupees [$50,000]. So we transporters are suspending supplies to NATO troops in protest," Afridi said.

During the past week alone, two drivers making the trip and one security guard at one of the 13 Peshawar terminals marking the convoys' starting point have been killed. At least 300 NATO supply vehicles have been torched in six spectacular attacks.

Adding to his association's loss of about 25 vehicles in the past week, according to Afridi, is that the association receives compensation only for oil tankers, but not for container trucks or their cargos.

The announcement to halt supplies is significant considering most of the association's members are Pashtun Afridi and Shinwari tribesmen from villages along the Khyber Pass who are well-familiar with the dangers along the route.

Terminals Targetted

But while a month ago attacks on their convoys were expected at the pass, the recent targeting of the terminals 20 kilometers east in Peshawar itself have added a new dimension of fear.

Security guards at the Peshawar terminals are nervous and no longer willing to endanger their lives for the $50 a month they are paid to keep watch. Pakistani media reported that guards fled their posts during the recent attacks.

Khyber Transport Association head Afridi says the convoys and supplies are increasingly being targeted in response to cross-border strikes being conducted by NATO drones on Pakistan territory.

Maulvi Omar, a self-proclaimed spokesman for Tehrek-e-Taliban Pakistan -- the umbrella group for various Taliban factions in Pakistan -- acknowledged as much this week in telephone calls to Pakistani journalists on December 14.

Ways of countering the tactic are being considered. Police in Peshawar have announced fresh measures to protect the NATO supply terminals, and reports indicate that Pakistan may deploy its paramilitary Frontier Constabulary to protect the supply chain.

Fighting The Militants

But Afridi sees little prospect of those efforts changing his association's decision to stop working for NATO. He says Pakistani authorities appear to helpless in the face of militant onslaught.

"This situation is like a revolution. Consider that 35 [Western] countries are unable to control the situation in Afghanistan. In comparison, Pakistan is an impoverished country and it lacks the resources to control Taliban and other similar organizations," Afridi says.

Currently, some 75 percent of all supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan are shipped in through Pakistan's southern Karachi seaport. Supplies are then trucked to Afghanistan through the mountain passes of Khyber and Khojak in northwestern and southern Pakistan.

Addressing the urgency of the situation, NATO has been actively seeking northern routes through Russia, the Caucuses, and Central Asia.

General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, reiterated on December 14 the need for the United States and NATO to develop alternative routes.

"The supply line issue in Pakistan is quite serious. There have been actually already various initiatives that now take a new urgency" he was quoted as saying during a security meeting in Bahrain.

Britain's "The Times" newspaper on December 13 quoted an unnamed NATO official as saying that the alliance is planning to open a northern supply route within the next eight weeks.

In November, Germany became the first NATO nation to win Russian permission to use the country's railways to transit military goods bound for Afghanistan.

Najib Aaamir, RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent in Peshawar, contributed to this story

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

ISAF goods pilfered during transport​

By Mohammad Ali Khan
Wednesday, 17 Dec, 2008 | 08:09 PM PST |


PESHAWAR: Goods meant for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are routinely pilfered and entire containers have gone missing during their transit through Pakistan, it is learnt.


Information gathered from different sources revealed that the transit facility extended for ISAF goods, the latest target of militants, is being misused for the Goods in Transit to Afghanistan (GITA).

Ships, carrying ISAF cargo, are docked at both Port Qasim and Karachi Port. The cargo is loaded on to trucks and dispatched to Afghanistan via land routes through Chaman and Torkhum.

Since, the ISAF goods are exempt from custom duties and routine verification, which GITA goods are subject to, the possibility of their pilferage inside Pakistan is much greater, sources said.

The ISAF goods are tampered with somewhere in Southern Punjab and the tribal areas, and then find their way into different markets of Pakistan including Karkhano markets of Peshawar, that are famous for smuggled goods.

Referring to a recent investigation, sources said authorities are unable to trace more than 400 containers that were issued transport permits but never reached Afghanistan.

Authorities have obtained records of over 2000 ISAF containers, which are missing, since the customs department has no record of their exit from Pakistan.

Of these 2000 containers, more than 1300 have so far been traced, since ISAF and Afghan authorities have confirmed receiving them. However, the status of hundreds of other containers is unknown.

The customs department has so far registered around 200 cases, mostly against customs clearing agents in Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Karachi.

The list of missing containers also include 29 containers shipped by Louis Berger Inc USA, owned by outgoing US vice president Dick Cheney, sources said. They added that these shipments were made on fake documents.

Customs Intelligence in Peshawar learned that the consignment mostly comprised of electronic goods which never crossed the border. Since the company is involved in the construction business, their shipment of electronic consumer goods raises questions.

The number of ISAF troops in Afghanistan is 65000, out of which 30000 are from the US. However, the volume of supply and type of consignments are raising suspicions that the ISAF transit exemptions are being misused.

Last year, more than 50,000 containers were transported from Karachi to Afghanistan via the land route. Most of them contained non-military goods such as plastic toys, electronics, etc.

The US has announced to send an additional 20,000 troops to Afghanistan, and the UK will also increase its troops in the war-ravaged country. This will ultimately jack up the volume of goods being transported via land routes in Pakistan.

An executive of a forwarding company, which deals in ISAF goods, also confirmed pilferage and missing containers. According to him, ISAF goods were carried from Karachi to Peshawar by the National Logistic Cell through commercial transport.

‘Since most of goods are carried by commercial transport, thefts from containers by breaking seals or even replacing contents are common,’ he said.

DAWN.COM | NWFP | ISAF goods pilfered during transport

----------------------------------------------

Interesting note on the cost to the Pakistani economy by virtue of ISAF convoys being used to evade taxes and smuggle goods into Afghanistan.

Smuggling and the corruption of border and customs officials has always been a concern, but given the challenges facing Pakistan currently, there is definitely an urgent need for improving controls and security all around.

 

[roadrunner]

The president, Shakirullah Afridi, put it rather pointedly: “If all the countries of NATO cannot control the situation in Afghanistan, how can escorts from [Pakistan’s paramilitary] Frontier Corps ensure our safety?”

Afridi’s truck drivers are on strike not for more money, but because they are not looking to sacrifice their lives for the transportation of U.S. and NATO military supplies.

Yup. You're right Afridis. A couple of hundred $$ or your life. Forget the money. Let the Tajiks and Uzbeks deal with it.

 

[orion]

For me,this is too late in coming...should have started happening before! let the americans feel the pinch too..mayb they learn a lesson in wht 'allys' really mean