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Pakistan blocks fuel supply route to Western forces
Published on Sat, Sep 06, 2008 at 12:08 in World » Neighbours section
Tags: Pakistan, Afghanistan , Peshawar
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Peshawar: Pakistani authorities have blocked a major fuel supply route for Western forces based in Afghanistan because of security concerns, officials said on Saturday.
The decision comes days after US commandos staged a raid on suspected militants inside Pakistani territory, drawing a furious response from the Pakistani government.
Officials said supplies had been blocked from crossing through the main crossing point on the Pakistani-Afghan border near Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province on the border with Afghanistan.
''We got instructions from Islamabad. The Frontier Corps has been directed to stop oil supplies for NATO,'' said a senior official in Peshawar, referring to a paramilitary force.
He said the government did not give a reason for the move. A second border crossing in the southwestern town of Chaman was operating normally on Saturday.
Supplies through this crossing are destined for foreign forces in the south, particularly around the city of Kandahar.
Another Pakistani official said the supplies were being halted at Torkham, the main border crossing point to the northwest of Peshawar, because of deteriorating security on the Pakistani side.
''The Torkham highway has become extremely dangerous ... the administration needs to beef up security on the highway. Once we have enough troops to ensure safety for the oil trucks, we will let them go,'' he said.
Fuel cargoes along this route supply the capital Kabul and the main US base at Bagram, to the north of Kabul.
The pre-dawn, helicopter-borne ground assault on the village of Angor Adda in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border on Wednesday was the first known incursion into Pakistan by US troops since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Pakistan has been a close US ally in the unpopular campaign against terrorism and it has tens of thousands of soldiers battling militants. But it forbids incursions by foreign forces.
The United States says al Qaeda and Taliban militants lurk in sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun tribal areas on the border, where they orchestrate attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot violence in the West.
Militants have attacked supply trucks heading to foreign forces in Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass to Torkham. Transport companies say more than 20 trucks and a dozen oil-tankers have been attacked since June and some drivers have been kidnapped and killed.
Torkham is one of two land routes for supplies going to Afghanistan from Pakistan and its main port of Karachi.
The Bush administration has not officially acknowledged any US involvement in Wednesday's raid.
But Pentagon officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack targeted suspected operatives and aimed to disrupt safe havens for militants who threaten US, NATO and Afghan forces across the border.
Pakistani officials said 20 people were killed in the attack, including women and children.
Pakistan's envoy in the United States said on Friday the raid had failed to capture anyone important and helped militants by enraging the Pakistani public.
While Wednesday's attack was the first known ground assault, there have been numerous missile strikes on militants in Pakistan, most believed launched by US-operated pilotless drone aircraft.
Two such attacks occurred this week. About nine militants were killed by missiles fired by suspected US drones in the northwest on Friday.
General Tariq Majid, chairman of Pakistan's Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, said on Friday cross-border strikes would alienate ethnic Pashtuns, who live on both sides of the border, and would be counter-productive.
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