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| Afghanistan |
| US shifts Afghan supply routes to Central Asia |
| 2011-07-04 |
| WASHINGTON: The US military is expanding its Central Asian supply routes to the war in Afghanistan, fearing that the routes going through Pakistan could be endangered by deteriorating US-Pakistani relations, The Washington Post reported late on Saturday. Citing unnamed Pentagon officials, the newspaper said that in 2009, the United States moved 90 percent of its military surface cargo through the port of Karachi and then through mountain passes into Afghanistan. Now almost 40 percent of surface cargo arrives in Afghanistan from the north, along a patchwork of Central Asian rail and road routes that the Pentagon calls the Northern Distribution Network, the report said. The military is pushing to raise the northern networkÂ’s share to as much as 75 percent by the end of this year, the paper said. In addition, the US government is negotiating expanded agreements with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries that would allow for delivery of additional supplies to the Afghan war zone, The Post said. The United States also wants permission to withdraw vehicles and other equipment from Afghanistan as the US military prepares to pull out one-third of its forces by September 2012, the paper noted. Although Pakistan has not explicitly threatened to sever the supply lines, Pentagon officials said they are concerned the routes could be endangered by the deterioration of US-Pakistan relations, partly fed by ill will from the cross-border raid that killed Osama bin Laden. While reducing the shipment of cargo through Pakistan would address a strategic weakness, shifting supply lines elsewhere would substantially increase the cost of the war and make the United States more dependent on authoritarian countries in Central Asia, the report said. It quoted a senior US defence official as saying that the military wants to keep using Pakistan, but the Pentagon also wants the ability to bypass the country if necessary. The report notes that in the event that the Pakistan supply route becomes unavailable, the military would have to deliver the bulk of its cargo by air, a method that costs up to 10 times as much as shipping via Pakistan. |
| Posted by:Steve White |