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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan suspends NATO supply line |
| 2008-12-08 |
| Pakistan suspends a supply line to NATO forces in Afghanistan after the Taliban burned into ashes about 150 NATO trucks in north-west Pakistan. The decision came just hours after a logistics terminal in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, where dozens of trucks carrying Humvees and other military vehicles were parked, was attacked by insurgents on Sunday. More than 300 Taliban militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles burned down the logitics terminal. Earlier in November Pakistan suspended traffic through the Khyber road -connecting Pakistan to Afghanistan- for several days after Taliban-linked militants hijacked more than a dozen trucks on the their way to Afghanistan. The Khyber road from Pakistan's Peshawar to Afghanistan is a major supply route for US and Western forces fighting against the Taliban insurgents. There have been a series of attacks on US and NATO convoys recently - although not on this scale. Sunday's raid is being described by many security experts in the region as the most serious of such recent attacks. It has fueled concerns that Taliban insurgents are tightening their hold in Pakistan's tribal belt and could choke the supply route. The al-Qaeda and Taliban linked militants holed up in the volatile north-west Pakistan have threatened to cut the supply line if US forces in Afghanistan continue strikes on their hideouts. The move would greatly hamper the operations of the US-led forces against the Taliban militants in Afghanistan, experts say. More than 70,000 foreign troops under the command of NATO and the US military are stationed in Afghanistan where the Taliban has made a come back since 2005. Pakistan's tribal areas are seen as a safe haven for Taliban militants, after a US-led invasion toppled their regime in Afghanistan in 2001. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #13 Another terminal attacked! Suspected militants in the Pakistani city of Peshawar have attacked another terminal holding Nato-bound equipment, the second such attack in two days. The attackers struck the terminal on the outskirts of the city, torching up to 50 vehicles. On Sunday a guard was killed and more than 90 lorries were set on fire when 300 gunmen attacked the first terminal. The road from Peshawar to Afghanistan is a major supply route for US and Western forces battling the Taleban. Lightly armed Monday's attack took place just 2km from the scene of the first raid in the early hours of Sunday. A security guard, Mohammad Zaman, told Reuters news agency that Monday's attackers "came just past midnight, firing in the air, sprinkled petrol on containers and then set them on fire". "They told us they would not harm us, but they asked us not to work for the Americans," he said. Terminals in Peshawar have only lightly armed guards who are deployed to tackle theft rather than insurgent raids. But raids on terminals supplying US and Nato forces in Afghanistan are increasing. The US played down Sunday's attack, saying the incident was "militarily insignificant". But the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul says that with 300 lorries crossing the border each day, military officials will be deeply concerned that their supply line can be disrupted in this manner. Witnesses said Sunday's attackers destroyed 96 flat trucks and six containers. The manager of the depot, Kifyatullah Khan, told Associated Press: "They were shouting Allahu Akbar (God is Great) and Down With America." Security along the road leading to the border has deteriorated this year with soldiers recently carrying out an offensive in the Khyber region to drive militants away from the outskirts of Peshawar, the main city in the north-west. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-12-08 22:53 |
| #12 48 hours is up anyway you spin it. What about supply through China? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-12-08 20:58 |
| #11 My two rupees: 1. So far, no heavy duty response from the Mumbai attacks. So ISI elements and the other terrorists think that India is weak. 2. So some ISI geniuses think that since it is the end of the Bush presidency, that it would be an opportune time to disrupt the logistical flow of materiel to Afghanistan, as they figure that the President is not going to make waves this late in his term of office. 3. Despite big talk from the Big O, they figure that he will also do nothing or the minimum. 4. The Pak army will not go seriously into the tribal regions and deal with the terrorists. 5. The Pak army will not seriously challenge the ISI and clean it up. So they figure that this is a perfect time to create mayhem and try to run us out of Afghanistan. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2008-12-08 20:40 |
| #10 First things first == secure and/or destroy their nuclear weapons and fissiles stocks. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-12-08 20:13 |
| #9 It's the Russians who may tip the scales here, particularly if they get ham handed in squeezing supply lines through the former SSRs. Old Spook, I wonder if Pakistan is even less coherent that Yugoslavia. Sure, the slavs were split three ways, or more, in confession, dialects, and ethnicity, but Marxism, under whatever variant, imposed a levelling misery across the board. The advantage of lifting that burden generally outweighed the return to more local prejudices - at least the rest of eastern europe indicates as much, while the yugo breakup ran the spectrum from relatively cordial to bad/near Rwandan. I wonder how a Pak breakup would play out, beyond OP's outline - it seems India would reconstitute the Raj, which I suspect would be fine with many from the Punjabi and Sindh. But the die hard leftovers really would be just that. Still - first things first. |
| Posted by: Halliburton - Mysterious Conspiracy Division 2008-12-08 20:06 |
| #8 But give the Paki govt one last shot: either they exert sovereignty in those tribal areas, or we will consider them to be unruled and lawless -- and therefore open to any measures we deem fit. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-12-08 14:43 |
| #7 Its coming down to Pakistan being dismembered. Its about as integral a nation as Yugoslavia was. ut first things first: get the nukes. Time to undo the mistake that is Pakistan. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-12-08 14:42 |
| #6 #4 So, how many Indian divisions would it take to maintain the LOC? Posted by: Procopius2k Before or after the US puts a major hurt on the Pakistanis, P2K? The US should take out the Pak nukes, break a LOT of heads in Islamabad, and totally crush any large gatherings of Pakistani troops (more than six people in one place). Then Pakistan could be divided into two parts - India to the east, and Afghanistan to the west. That would unify the Pashtuns, which should please that group. It would give the Baluchis a bit of breathing room, which should please them. India would have all of Jammu & Kashmir, which should please them. Most of the madrassas would be either blasted to bits or quietly disbanded, which should allow the rest of the world to breathe a little easier. The market for fake Pakistani passports would dry up, which should help put a stop to a LOT of sh$$. ISI would disappear, which should bring the threat levels in about 20 countries down to acceptable levels. A lot of British indigents would have to make a major decision - accept British, Indian, or Afghanistani citizenship, or find themselves people wihtout a country. A group of people who have no idea how to run a modern government no longer have to worry about it. I see no drawbacks, personally. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-12-08 12:58 |
| #5 I think about 80% of US/NATO supplies come through the Khyber Pass, 10% through Russian railroads, through the Stans and in through the North, and 10% Gwadar-Quetta-Kandahar. This Strategy Page piece says it's 75% through Khyber, and that negotiations are underway to move large tonnages on the Trans-Siberian RR. From the looks of it, the Strategy Page bot harvested that info from this WaPo article. |
| Posted by: Plastic Snoopy 2008-12-08 12:40 |
| #4 So, how many Indian divisions would it take to maintain the LOC? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-12-08 09:17 |
| #3 How's that Pak sovereignty? Looks like they can't control ANYTHING yeah, yeah, I know, this is all ISI strategery |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-12-08 08:31 |
| #2 Coincidence with pressure being applied re Mumbai! |
| Posted by: Paul2 2008-12-08 07:21 |
| #1 This could get very interesting, methinks. Anyone here an off-the-shelf expert on our LOC into Afghanistan, and what interruption or complication of the Pakistan route in question might mean? Alternative route? How much comes straight up through Baluchistan, if any? In extremis, might we "secure" an alternate route, and what sort of fun might that imply? |
| Posted by: Verlaine 2008-12-08 02:52 |