NATO supplies under attack in Pakistan (Feature)

By dpa correspondents Oct 9, 2010, 6:33 GMT

Islamabad/Brussels - The atmosphere among Pakistani lorry drivers is tense: Islamist extremists have been again and again attacking their vehicles transporting supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan in the past week.

The attacks have been stepped up since Pakistan closed its border crossing at Torkham for NATO supplies on October 1, following a US drone attack in Pakistani territory which killed to paramilitary border troops.

NATO says it does not see an immediate danger for supplying its troops in Afghanistan. According to official figures, 80 per cent of NATO supplies are transported to Afghanistan via Pakistan. Two-thirds of them cross the border at Torkham, the remainder at Chaman in the south-western province of Balochistan.

More than 120 trucks have been torched during the latest wave of attacks and six people lost their lives. 'There is no security. The Taliban attack where and when they want,' said Shakir Afridi, head of the Khyber Transport Association.

The Taliban began to attack NATO supply convoys in Pakistan's restive north-west in early 2008, and only scaled back their attacks following an offensive by the Pakistani military a year later.

In June, the rebels for the first time attacked a supply convoy near the capital Islamabad, destroying 80 trucks that were transporting 80 NATO military vehicles.

Thousands of trucks have been stuck at rest stops or on the roadside since authorities closed the border for them last week, making them easy targets.

'The longer the convoys are stuck, the bigger the danger,' said NATO spokesman James Appathurai in Brussels. Yet he does not foresee and problems for the mission of the 120,000 troops of the NATO-led international forces in Afghanistan. 'At the moment we have sufficient supplies in Afghanistan and the closure has not changed that.'

NATO and Pakistan signed a transit agreement at the beginning of the Afghan war in 2001, which, according to media reports, earns Islamabad about 1.5 billion dollars per year.

Private companies with individual contracts are responsible for delivery. They pick up the supply goods in the port of Karachi and drive them across the border. Tankers also transport fuel from Pakistani refiners to Afghanistan.

'Altogether some 6,500 vehicles work the two routes, each of them with three men on board,' Afridi said. The pay was satisfactory, he said, but the attacks and the border closure at Torkham presented increasing difficulties for the companies and the drivers, he said.

'We only get our money when we have delivered our cargo in Afghanistan.'

While the danger of insurgent attacks remains present, a solution seems near in the border spat between NATO and Pakistan.

Pakistan's military and civilian authorities reassured NATO that they could expect the border to be reopened for its convoys in the near future, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday in Brussels.

The government in Islamabad did not confirm his optimism. dpa stm/ns/eb im tl

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