Pakistan's significance in the US "global war on terror" was highlighted again yesterday as the media reported yet another major attack on US supply lines through Pakistan. In this attack, 96 flat trucks and six containers were destroyed, including a 40-foot container, armored jeeps, trucks and fire engines, according to Reuters.
Pakistani truckers say that more than 350 trucks carry an average of 7,000 tons of supplies over the Khyber Pass to Kabul every day. Almost 75% of all supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan come through Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel sent to troops, the majority through Peshawar. Last month, militants looted a convoy of 12 trucks carrying Humvees and food supplies as they traveled through the Khyber Pass.
Following US strikes in Pakistan in November this year, Pakistan's decision to temporarily bar some trucks from a key passageway to Afghanistan threatened a critical supply route for U.S. and NATO troops and raised more fears about deteriorating security situation in the border region.
The U.S. military has been looking at alternate routes to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan in case Pakistan makes current supply lines unavailable, the Pentagon said last year. There have been reports of US contemplating longer but safer overland supply routes to Afghanistan through Europe. Apparently not much has changed in a year, indicating lack of success of the US efforts.
"The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country will be defended at all cost and no external force is allowed to conduct operations inside Pakistan," said Pakistan's General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani in a strong statement against US military incursion in FATA. General Kayani, named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people of the world, was commenting on a cross-border raid allegedly by US-led coalition troops based in neighboring Afghanistan in which 15 Pakistanis were killed. "Such reckless actions only help the militants and further fuel the militancy in the area," he was quoted as saying. 
The U.S. is "running out of time" to win the war in Afghanistan, and sending in more troops will not guarantee victory, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned Congress recently. Mullen said he is convinced the Afghanistan war can be won but said the U.S. urgently needs to improve its nation-building initiatives and its cross-border strategy with Pakistan, according to CNN.
It is clear that there is growing resentment and impatience on both the US and Pakistani sides. Military leaders Kayani and Mullen seem to be indicating that the US and Pakistan are heading toward an unnecessary military confrontation. But is it inevitable?
To understand the Pakistani position, let me refer the readers to what Gary Leupp, a history professor at Tufts University has to say. According to him, Pakistan has provided more assistance to the United States than any other nation as it pursues its goals in southwest Asia. No country has been more dramatically destabilized as the price of its cooperation.
“But not only does the U.S. political class take this disastrous compliance for granted, it wants to further emphasize Islamabad’s irrelevance by attacking the border area at will,” he writes.
The US dilemma is captured well in what Admiral Mullen told Congress today. Mullen stressed that Afghanistan can't be referenced without "speaking of Pakistan," where, he said, the militant groups collaborate and communicate better, launch more sophisticated attacks, employ foreign fighters and use civilians as human shields.
"In my view, these two nations are inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them," he said, adding that he plans "to commission a new, more comprehensive strategy for the region, one that covers both sides of the border.
"I have pressed hard on my counterparts in Pakistan to do more against extremists and to let us do more to help them," he said.
There is a constant refrain from US and NATO urging Pakistan to "do more" while undermining its sovereignty by humiliating its government and military to make them both look weak and irrelevant. Such treatment meted out to its "ally" is not winning the US any friends or positively influencing people in Pakistan to support the US war on terror. On the contrary, it is reinforcing the terrorists and radicalizing Pakistanis to oppose the US presence in region.
Recently, the American officials and media completely ignored the fact that the growing admiration of Israel and the urge to emulate Israel often find expression in the Indian media. Those who argue for "doing a Lebanon" in Pakistan have once again found growing support in India with the government and the media joining the chorus of accusations of Pakistan's complicity in Mumbai attacks. Saber rattling has also started with India's Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee not ruling out military strikes in Pakistan. President-elect Obama has come out in support of India's right "to protect themselves". Asked if India had the right to “take out” high-value targets inside Pakistan with or without the permission of Islamabad, as he espousing in regard to the U.S. under his presidency, he said: “I think that sovereign nations, obviously, have a right to protect themselves". This is the same kind of language that President Bush has often used in support of Israel's attacks on Palestinians and Lebanese.
In the context of Pakistan's anti-American public opinion, the country's ongoing crises, and the growing US demands on Pakistan, the future of US-Pakistan relations and the chances of success in the "war on terror" do not look particularly bright. The only solution to this darkening mood in both nations is a serious and sincere effort by each to improve their bilateral relationship based on a recognition of mutual interests and genuine needs. The incoming Obama administration has an opportunity to change the US tone with Pakistan in January 2009 to make the friendship genuine and useful to both partners in the war on terror. Barack Obama's oft-repeated position that Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations can not be isolated from the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world offers a good starting point for discussion.
As long as the Kashmir issue remains unresolved, Pakistan, India and the US can not win the "war on terror" and bring peace and stability to the South Asian region. Recent Mumbai attacks and the ostensible Kashmir link have confirmed that yet again. India's opposition to Mr. Obama's desire to mediate will test the Obama administration's resolve in seriously pursuing resolution of Kashmir.
Threre are more reasons to migrate to Canada
1 year ago
18 comments:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zardari8-2008dec08,0,5168309.story
Some more newspapers about Pakistan.
The Pakistani people do not believe that the attackers were from
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1208/p25s01-woap.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/08/world/asia/08terror.html?bl&ex=1228885200&en=c7f69aeca37e3a40&ei=5087%0A
New York times writes about pakistan.
Bruce Riedel and Barack Obama believe Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations can not be isolated from the "war on terror" in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. As long as the Kashmir issue remains unresolved, Pakistan, India and the US can not win the "war on terror" and bring peace and stability to the South Asia region. Mumbai attacks have confirmed that yet again.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1121/p01s01-wosc.html
India does not need pakistan in its current form. As far as a war goes, we have too many problems of our own to contend with rather than obsess over Pakistan. India has lost over 60000 people to terrorism ever since the russians evacuated afghanistan and insurgency began in kashmir. As an economic superpower, we will absorb some more losses and move on. Maybe attack some terrorist bases in Pak territory with US Complicity, strengthen our borders and sea routes, Impose sanctions on Pakistan, Put an end to samjhauta etc. What does pakistan want for itself remains to be seen. Currently it just looks like a failed state waiting to implode. It doesnt help India, but for us in India, what choice do we have other than to wait and see how things play out.
Ameet,
Pakistan has a lot of political, economic and security challenges. But I don't agree that it is even close to being a failed state. Not only does it have a powerful, nuclear-armed military to keep it together, it also has a functioning bureaucracy that runs day-to-day government reasonably well. Examples of failed states are Afghanistan and Somalia, both represent a far cry from the situation in Pakistan.
Besides, it is not in anyone's interest, particularly its neighbors, to see Pakistan become a failed state. The consequences of such a failed state would be unimaginable compared to Afghanistan's or Somalia's failures.
Ameet, Instead of wishing for Pakistan to become a failed state, you should be praying and hoping that it does not fail. It would be disastrous for India, South Asia and the rest of the world, if it does fail.
According to The New York Times, The United States and NATO are planning to open and expand supply lines through Central Asia to deliver fuel, food and other goods to a military mission in Afghanistan that is expected to grow by tens of thousands of troops in the months ahead, according to American and alliance diplomats and military officials.
The plan to open new paths through Central Asia reflects an American-led effort to seek out a more reliable alternative to the route from Pakistan through the strategic Khyber Pass, which was closed by Pakistani security forces on Tuesday as they launched an offensive against militants in the region.
The militants have shown they can threaten shipments through the pass into Afghanistan, burning cargo trucks and American Humvees over recent weeks. More than 80 percent of the supplies for American and allied forces in Afghanistan now flow through Pakistan.
But the new arrangements could leave the United States more reliant on cooperation from authoritarian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which have poor records when it comes to democracy and human rights.
The officials said delicate negotiations were under way not only with the Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan, but with Russia, as well, to work out the details of new supply routes. The talks show the continued importance of American and NATO cooperation with the Kremlin, despite lingering tension over Russia’s August war with Georgia.
American officials said they were trying to allay Central Asian concerns by promising that the supplies would be hauled by commercial shipping companies only and would not include weapons or munitions. Officials also say that no additional American bases will be required on their territory.
Some of Afghanistan’s neighbors, in particular Kyrgyzstan, already serve as staging areas for American supplies bound for Afghanistan, and officials involved in the talks said these countries appeared eager to increase their role, both to help bring stability in the region, and to benefit commercially from the arrangement.
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan share Afghanistan’s northern border, and they have road transport routes into Afghanistan.
Kyrgyzstan, farther to the north, allows American military cargo planes access to its airfields, in a deal that has become more important since 2005, when the government of Uzbekistan ordered the United States to leave a base there in a dispute over human rights issues. American and NATO officials say concerns about Uzbekistan’s human rights record are less important to the current negotiations because no new bases are under discussion and any increased supply shipments would be handled by contracts with commercial trucking companies.
Among other states, Kazakhstan is viewed as a potentially important supply hub, while the Caspian Sea port of Baku, Azerbaijan, could be a potential transit point for shipments of fuel and other goods arriving from Europe by sea or by rail.
Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, chief of the American military’s Transportation Command, quietly visited nations along Afghanistan’s northern border last month, according to American military officials who declined to identify the countries by name because of diplomatic sensitivities.
“These countries of Central Asia recognize that this is their struggle, too, in Afghanistan,” said one State Department official, who said those border nations had responded positively to talks on “how to improve, regularize, expand and find additional routes in.”
NATO officials say the attacks in Pakistan have not yet presented a strategic threat to the American supply lines, but they also say planning for alternative routes is warranted.
“We always want flexibility,” said Gen. John Craddock, NATO’s military commander. “There is work ongoing in NATO to see what can be done about alternative lines of communication.”
President-elect Barack Obama has said that he intends to send more American troops to Afghanistan in the months ahead, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this month that 20,000 to 30,000 American troops could be added to the mission, with a large portion being sent in the first six months of next year.
About 31,000 American troops are currently in Afghanistan, including 14,000 who are part of a NATO-led mission that has more than 51,000 troops. The other 17,000 American troops operate independently of NATO to carry out combat, counterterrorism and training missions.
The increase outlined by Admiral Mullen could nearly double the size of the American presence, which would require not just more war-fighting equipment, food and fuel, but large increases in lumber, concrete and other construction materials to build barracks and other support structures. Officials say that because of Afghanistan’s land-locked status and its relatively primitive infrastructure of roads, it costs several times more to sustain an individual soldier there than in Iraq.
Maj. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, deputy commander of American forces in Afghanistan, said, “There’s a very huge building campaign that has already begun” to prepare for the arrival of those additional troops.
Under plans described by the American military, a goal would be to purchase significant amounts of supplies locally from those Central Asian economies. Other supplies could be shipped to Central Asia by air, but heavy construction equipment and fuel would be sent by rail to Central Asia, where it would then be loaded on trucks for the final journey into Afghanistan.
Some supplies could be sent directly from Europe or through Baltic ports, then sent overland along Russia’s well-developed rail system to Central Asia. Russia today is the principal source of fuel for the alliance’s needs in Afghanistan, and the Kremlin already allows shipment of other nonlethal supplies bound for Afghanistan to travel across Russian territory by ground.
In a new development, NATO and Russian representatives now are discussing whether NATO might be allowed to move military equipment through Russian airspace, alliance officials said.
“Talks are now under way for a NATO-wide air transit for military goods, not specified as nonlethal,” said James Appathurai, NATO’s chief spokesman.
“Those talks are going well,” Mr. Appathurai added. “The Russian Federation has publicly and repeatedly made it clear that this is an issue of strategic interest to them, and that despite disagreements we have over other issues, this area of cooperation has been walled off and preserved. We expect it to be deepened.”
Here's the latest on alternative Central Asia/Russia supply roue for US/NATO forces in Afgha
Patreus said the Pakistan route had been flowing "generally freely" in recent weeks but that the US and Nato had sought "additional logistical routes from the north".
He added: "There have been agreements reached and there are transit lines now and transit agreements for commercial goods and services in particular that include several countries in the Central Asian states and also Russia."
The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says most of Nato's supplies are transported overland through Pakistan, but support for the Nato war effort in Afghanistan is unpopular in Pakistan and supply trucks have increasingly been attacked by local militants.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7839265.stm
Here's an excerpt from a recent piece in Newsweek explaining the critical importance of Pakistan for US Afghan campaign:
The events of the past week make clear why the United States has been so solicitous. After a U.S. helicopter attack across the border killed two Pakistani soldiers at a frontier outpost, Islamabad shut down one of the main crossings into Afghanistan in protest. Three quarters of nonlethal supplies intended for Coalition troops in Afghanistan travel through Pakistan. The crossing point quickly clogged with trucks that couldn’t pass, making them easy targets. Militants torched more than 100 fuel tankers as Pakistani authorities largely stood aside and watched.
Impeding supply routes is not the strongest leverage Pakistan can bring to bear. The high-tech drone war that has eviscerated Al Qaeda’s ranks—killing 17 commanders in the last nine months—is run out of Pakistan and is largely dependent on Pakistani intelligence for targeting. Islamabad publicly denies any role in the Predator strikes, and loudly protests the collateral damage when civilians are killed. But it hasn’t grounded the CIA’s drones—so far.
America’s forbearance, though, is waning. In a report sent to Congress on Oct. 4, the Obama administration admitted that “the Pakistan military [has] continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or Al Qaeda forces in North Waziristan.” There is a reason for this—a “political choice,” as the report says. The Pakistani military has long tolerated Afghan insurgents like the Haqqanis, who direct their attacks into Afghanistan only. Those groups—which include the Quetta Shura, led by the one-eyed Mullah Mohammed Omar—are Islamabad’s insurance policy, agents who are meant to look after Pakistani interests when the United States eventually withdraws the bulk of its forces from the region. (Pakistan vehemently denies supporting any militant groups.)
Here's an excerpt from a Dawn report on Pakistan's dissatisfaction with KLB follow-up:
ISLAMABAD: In the run-up to the third round of strategic dialogue, Pakistani authorities are getting irritated over the lack of US interest in resolving the country’s long-term regional issues and in providing economic support despite publicly declaring it a key ally in the war on terror and appreciating its sacrifices.
The authorities are also dissatisfied with the ‘triple accounting’ by the United States of its economic assistance to Pakistan, although the overall assistance remained less than $1.5 billion in a year. They also grumble that Pakistan has not been given market access for its products they believe it deserves in comparison to other countries.
“Since our engagement with US after 9/11 about more than nine years ago, the United States has made wide-ranging trading arrangements with Latin American countries, African nations and even some states in the Middle East but greater market access to Pakistan still remains far off,” said a government official.
Officials said that these were some of the issues Pakistani delegation led by Army Chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani would raise again with the US authorities as part of the Pakistan-US strategic dialogue to be held in Washington next week.
“The US actions and assurances do not match when it comes to Pakistan’s role and returns it should get,” the official said.
In background discussions, the official said the US leadership never missed an opportunity to assure Islamabad how central they considered a stable Pakistan to achieve global and regional peace and yet they looked the other way when the government discussed US role in resolving a ‘proxy water war launched by India’ besides the longstanding Kashmir issue that was the key to regional stability.
They said India had launched a full-scale water aggression against Pakistan by initiating a number of controversial projects on rivers allocated to Pakistan under the 1960 waters treaty.
Pakistan wanted the US to play its role in addressing its concerns, they said.
They said these irritants had repeatedly been discussed with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama’s special envoy Richard Holbrooke but without any tangible progress beyond diplomatic pleasantries. They, however, agree that the US has moved in appreciating Pakistan’s concerns relating to the Afghan situation.
Sources said the United States had committed to provide $7.5 billion assistance in five years to Islamabad under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman Act at the rate of $1.5 billion in a year.
As part of Friends of Democratic Pakistan, the United States had assured last year to help Pakistan overcome its economic problems by offering more assistance but “when we got back to the US authorities for follow up, we realised that its pledges at FoDP were part of its earlier commitments made under the KLB Act”.
The flood-related US support, the sources said, also came under the KLB amount of $1.5 billion a year.
Here are some excerpts from "Playing the China Card: Has the Obama Administration Miscalculated in Pakistan?" by Dilip Hiro, as published in The Huffingon Post:
Washington often acts as if Pakistan were its client state, with no other possible patron but the United States. It assumes that Pakistani leaders, having made all the usual declarations about upholding the “sacred sovereignty” of their country, will end up yielding to periodic American demands, including those for a free hand in staging drone attacks in its tribal lands bordering Afghanistan. This is a flawed assessment of Washington’s long, tortuous relationship with Islamabad.
A recurring feature of the Obama administration’s foreign policy has been its failure to properly measure the strengths (as well as weaknesses) of its challengers, major or minor, as well as its friends, steadfast or fickle. To earlier examples of this phenomenon, one may now add Pakistan.
That country has an active partnership with another major power, potentially a viable substitute for the U.S. should relations with the Obama administration continue to deteriorate. The Islamabad-Washington relationship has swung from close alliance in the Afghan anti-Soviet jihad years of the 1980s to unmistaken alienation in the early 1990s, when Pakistan was on the U.S. watch list as a state supporting international terrorism. Relations between Islamabad and Beijing, on the other hand, have been consistently cordial for almost three decades. Pakistan’s Chinese alliance, noted fitfully by the U.S., is one of its most potent weapons in any future showdown with the Obama administration.
Another factor, also poorly assessed, affects an ongoing war. While, in the 1980s, Pakistan acted as the crucial conduit for U.S. aid and weapons to jihadists in Afghanistan, today it could be an obstacle to the delivery of supplies to America’s military in Afghanistan. It potentially wields a powerful instrument when it comes to the efficiency with which the U.S. and its NATO allies fight the Taliban. It controls the supply lines to the combat forces in that landlocked country.
Taken together, these two factors make Pakistan a far more formidable and independent force than U.S. policymakers concede publicly or even privately.
The Supply Line as Jugular
Angered at the potential duplicity of Pakistan in having provided a haven to Osama bin Laden for years, the Obama administration seems to be losing sight of the strength of the cards Islamabad holds in its hand.
To supply the 100,000 American troops now in Afghanistan, as well as 50,000 troops from other NATO nations and more than 100,000 employees of private contractors, the Pentagon must have unfettered access to that country through its neighbors. Among the six countries adjoining Afghanistan, only three have seaports, with those of China far too distant to be of practical use. Of the remaining two, Iran -- Washington’s number one enemy in the region -- is out. That places Pakistan in a unique position.
Currently about three-quarters of the supplies for the 400-plus U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan -- from gigantic Bagram Air Base to tiny patrol outposts -- go overland via Pakistan or through its air space. These shipments include almost all the lethal cargo and most of the fuel needed by U.S.-led NATO forces. On their arrival at Karachi, the only major Pakistani seaport, these supplies are transferred to trucks, which travel a long route to crossing points on the Afghan border. Of these, two are key: Torkham and Chaman.
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Operated by some 4,000 Pakistani drivers and their helpers, nearly 300 trucks and oil tankers pass through Torkham and another 200 through Chaman daily. Increasing attacks on these convoys by Taliban-allied militants in Pakistan starting in 2007 led the Pentagon into a desperate search for alternative supply routes.
Here's an Express Tribune report on US supply lines into Afghanistan:
Citing figures from the US Transportation Command, only 29 per cent of cargo goes through Pakistan, whereas 40 per cent goes through the NDN, and the rest is shipped by air. However, the committee report says that the NDN is not an ideal replacement for current supply routes in Pakistan. The NDN only allows goods to be sent to Afghanistan and not back, and also only allows for the transit of non-lethal supplies. “Sensitive and high-technology equipment is transported by airlift.”
The NDN supply route also costs the United States more money. An additional $10,000 is spent on sending a 20-foot container to ship via the NDN as opposed to sending it through Pakistan. Airlifting supplies into Afghanistan is the costliest – with an additional $40,000 per 20-foot container spent on sending it by air.
The report also highlights the challenges faced by the United States in allying with Central Asian states. “In many cases, the United States is forced to rely on highly corrupt, authoritarian governments in countries whose populations are suspicious of US intentions.” Citing fears that Russia and China has about US involvement in the region, the report says that China is “even more nervous about the risk of instability in Afghanistan should the United States and its partners fail to help stabilise the country.”
Recommendations presented in the report including striking a balance between security and political priorities in Central Asia, working on regional cooperation especially in controlling narcotics trafficking, and working on the New Silk Road vision, outlined by Secretary Clinton earlier this year, and helping connect South and Central Asia via Afghanistan.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/309163/only-29-of-non-military-us-supplies-go-through-pakistan-report/
Longest 33 day pause in drone strikes in Pakistan since 2008, reports Long War Journal:
The covert US drone program that hunts al Qaeda and allied terrorists operating in Pakistan's tribal areas has entered its longest pause since the strikes were ramped up in the summer of 2008.
The US has not launched a Predator or Reaper airstrike against terrorist targets in Pakistan for 33 days, according to statistics compiled by The Long War Journal. The last strike took place on Nov. 16 in the Ramzak area of North Waziristan.
US officials have previously told The Long War Journal that the program is "on hold" due to deteriorating relations between the US and Pakistan from the fallout of a cross-border incident by NATO forces in the tribal agency of Mohmand that resulted in the deaths of 24 Pakistani officers and soldiers.
One US official told The Long War Journal there is concern that another US strike on Pakistani soil will "push US-Pakistan relations past the point of no return." Another official said, however, that the US would attack if "an extremely high value target pops up." [See LWJ report, US drone strikes 'on hold' in Pakistan: US official, for more information on the reasons behind the current pause.]
The 33-day-long gap in strikes is the longest since another pause that took place in the spring of 2009 (28 days, May 16 to June 14). US officials attributed that gap to operational issues with the unmanned aircraft.
The third- and fourth-longest pauses also took place earlier this year, during a time of high tensions with Pakistan. A 27-day-long gap in strikes from Jan. 23 to Feb. 20 occurred after CIA contractor Raymond Davis killed two Pakistanis in Lahore. The US ended the pause in strikes the day Davis was returned to the US.
And a 25-day-long gap from March 17 to April 13 took place after the US killed dozens of Pakistanis in a strike in North Waziristan. That strike killed a senior Taliban leader and 11 fighters along with an estimated 30 tribesmen who were said to be negotiating mineral rights in the area. Several members of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, the military's intelligence arm, which supports the Taliban and other terror groups, were rumored to have also been killed in the strikes.
US officials had previously denied that the two pauses earlier this year were due to tensions with Pakistan, and instead cited operational issues with the unmanned aircraft, to include "weather." There have been significant pauses during that seasonal time period in previous years.
But one US official told The Long War Journal that the two long pauses earlier this year were indeed related to political problems with Pakistan encountered during those time frames.
"If it isn't clear by now, the airstrikes targeting AQAM (al Qaeda and allied movements) have been constrained by deteriorating relations [with Pakistan]," a senior US official said.
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/12/us_drone_strikes_in.php#ixzz1h2mntuvO
Here's a Friday Times story on the impact of NATO supplies on trucking business in Pakistan:
The US and NATO depended heavily on Pakistan for logistic support and a large percentage of the supplies to their troops in Afghanistan when the Afghanistan war began in 2001.
"But after constant attacks on our supplies, we decided to find an alternative route in 2007," said John Arlington, who represents a major contractor in Dubai. "In 2011, less than 40 percent of all NATO and ISAF supplies go through Pakistan."
Arlington explained how truck trade works. "Front-end companies get contracts in DC, and outsource contracts to businessmen in Dubai, who then outsource to trucking companies in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
The business has been so profitable in Pakistan that most transporters have started working exclusively for NATO suppliers, and there is a serious truck shortage, said Umer Ansari, a middle manager in Karachi who looks after supply chain management. "We are paying Rs 124,000 to Rs 130,000 per trip from Karachi to Faisalabad as opposed to Rs 95,000 three months ago."
The Karachi Port Trust (KPT) charges a levy of Rs 400 per container of NATO supplies, and the Qasim International Containers Terminal (QICT) charges another Rs400.
Traders say Pakistani sub-contractors earn $250 million to $300 million a year. "But profits comes with risks," said Muhammad Azam, 38, originally from Wana but living in Karachi.
In mid 2000s, an arrested terrorist disclosed that his group had been trained in suicide bombing by Baitullah Mehsud and was asked to attack NATO trucks. Contractors abducted by the Taliban have to pay ransoms as high as $35 million.
Americans have built one of the largest consulates of the world in Karachi and have repeatedly sought the assistance British diplomats to engage with MQM - a key political party in Karachi - to maintain peace in the city. According to one source, the ANP has huge stakes in NATO supplies and has strong influence among Karachi's transporters. Transporters who deal with NATO supplies are often Mehsuds and Afridis from the tribal belt.
"Its one of the toughest jobs in the world," sub-contractor Abdul Hakim Mehsud said. "Over 13 of my trucks and three of my drivers have vanished in interior Sindh recently. But the profit margins are high and that keeps me motivated."
According to Mathew Irvin, a security consultant for NATO/ISAF in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the recent attacks on NATO supplies in Interior Sindh that began after 2009 are used by the Pakistani security establishment to pressure the US. "Some sub-contractors also report fake attacks to carry out insurance fraud," he said. At least on one occasion, a sub-contractor was caught and fined.
"Gawadar is an alternative port, but it is not operational yet," said Brigadier (r) Shaukat Qadir. He said Pakistan received payments for NATO supplies and it was therefore important for Pakistan to ensure the supplies were not disrupted. Asked who is behind attacks on trucks carrying NATO supplies, he said, "My guess would be TTP and its affiliates, the Punjabi Taliban."
"In December 2008, militants destroyed 400 containers carrying food, fuel, and military vehicles," a NATO source said. After that, NATO and ISAF began paying tribes to ensure trucks reached their destination."
"The attacks are not likely to stop any time soon," according to a foreign diplomat, "but we have made pacts with warlords, tribes and various stakeholders in Pakistan who ensure safe transit of the goods. They include political parties both in Pakistan and Afghanistan." According to a contractor, those who profit from the business include "sacred cows".
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20111209&page=7.2
The closure of Pak routes poses a problem for withdrawing Canadian troops in Afghanistan, according to Montreal Gazette:
Hundreds of cargo containers of Canadian war supplies are stranded in volatile southern Afghanistan, thanks to an ongoing Pakistani blockade of routes exiting the landlocked country.
And with Pakistani officials preparing to impose steep tariffs on all NATO shipments transiting the country, the cost of Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan could increase by more than a half million dollars.
The Canadian Forces are trying to bring home thousands of tonnes of war equipment used during the nearly 10-year combat mission. Packed into some 446 sea containers, most of this cargo is currently stored at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.
High priority items — such as all armoured vehicles and ammunition — have already been flown out of Afghanistan on Canada's giant CC-177 Globemaster transport aircraft.
Nevertheless, much of the army's gear remains stuck in Afghanistan, Lt.-Col. John Nethercott told Postmedia News. He said the remaining items are "low priority in nature," and include tools, tents, forklifts, barbed wire and engineering equipment.
The Department of National Defence has granted a contract to move the containers from Afghanistan to Pakistan to A.J. Maritime, a Montreal-based freight forwarding firm.
It is believed the remaining 446 containers were supposed to exit Afghanistan's southeastern border post at Spin Boldak, then cross the deserts of Balochistan to the port of Karachi. Once at the port, the containers would be loaded onto ships for the sail home to Canada.
But Imran Ali, Pakistan's deputy consul general in Toronto, told Postmedia News Wednesday that the Afghan-Pakistan border is shut tight for now.
"No containers are passing as of today," he said. "There is a total sealing of the border."
Ali said this problem began when United States forces bombed two Pakistani border posts in late November, leaving 24 soldiers dead and 13 wounded. After a day of frenzied meetings about the "unprovoked attack," Pakistani officials announced they would take steps to disrupt NATO supply lines in and out of the Afghan theatre.
"The (Defence Committee of Cabinet) has decided to close with immediate effect the NATO/ISAF logistics supply lines," said a Nov. 26 statement by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry.
Following the closure of the border, Pakistan began a comprehensive policy review of its relations with NATO. Ali said the national security committee of the Pakistani parliament is "in the final stages of drawing out a policy" that will be published within three to four days.
Ali said Pakistan is considering levying a tax on all NATO containers passing through the country, and that officials have discussed a $1,500 U.S. charge per shipping container.
"Customs officials, along with foreign policy officials in Pakistan, are discussing the amount of levy to enforce," Ali said.
Such a tariff, applied to 446 containers, would cost Canada some $660,000 U.S..
Read more: http://www.canada.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/Pakistan+border+closure+leaves+Canadian+supplies+stuck+Afghanistan/5947032/story.html#ixzz1iYWDbKeM
Here's an AP report on the high cost of alternative routes while NATO supplies thru Pakistan remain shut:
The U.S. is paying six times as much to send war supplies to troops in Afghanistan through alternate routes after Pakistan’s punitive decision in November to close border crossings to NATO convoys, the Associated Press has learned.
Islamabad shut down two key Pakistan border crossings after a U.S. airstrike killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers in late November, and it is unclear when the crossings might reopen.
Pentagon figures provided to the AP show it is now costing about $104 million per month to send the supplies through a longer northern route. That is $87 million more per month than when the cargo moved through Pakistan.
While U.S. officials have acknowledged that using alternate transportation routes for Afghan war supplies is more expensive and takes longer, the total costs had not been revealed until now. The Pentagon provided the cost figures to the AP on Thursday.
U.S. officials said Thursday the elevated costs are likely to continue for some time, as U.S.-Pakistan tensions remain high and Pakistan has not yet offered to restore the transport arrangement or to begin negotiations on the matter. Until the closure, the U.S. had relied on Pakistani routes to move about one-third of all war supplies for Afghanistan.
The U.S. has given Pakistan more than $20 billion in aid since 9/11, including civilian and military assistance. But over the past year, relations with Islamabad have been strained by a series of incidents, including the U.S. assault in Pakistan last May that killed Osama bin Laden.
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Pakistani officials say they are sorting through the thousands of stranded vehicles to push through supplies for Afghans. So far, the Pakistanis have given no indication of when they will open the border for NATO supplies to Afghanistan.
There has been limited contact between top U.S. and Pakistani officials.
Last week, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, talked by phone with his Pakistani counterpart, Army Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, their first contact since Dec. 21. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has not spoken to Pakistani leaders since the incident.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/apnewsbreak-pakistans-closure-of-supply-routes-costs-us-6-times-more-for-new-route/2012/01/19/gIQAzTUTBQ_story.html
Here's a Global Post story on NATO using smugglers to supply its troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan:
With few other options available to it since Pakistan closed its border crossings almost two months ago, NATO has at times resorted to paying local smugglers to get much-needed supplies to its troops fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials say.
The Pakistani and Afghan smugglers, who must pay bribes to militants to travel safely through some areas, navigate treacherous routes over the 1,800-mile mountainous divide that separates the two countries to bring containers of oil, food and other essential items — all at a price — to soldiers on the other side.
“Borders mean nothing to us. We have been crossing in and out for centuries,” Sahib Khan, a smuggler who said NATO had hired him, told GlobalPost.
The hiring of illegal smugglers came after a failed attempt by NATO to pay private companies, which truck goods across the border under the Pakistan-Afghanistan Free Trade Agreement (PATA). These private companies, Pakistani officials said, were secretly swapping out their normal cargo for NATO supplies until Pakistani security forces caught wind of the scam.
A senior officer for the Frontier Corps, an elite military unit that is responsible for security along the border, told GlobalPost that a total ban on the movement of containers under PATA, which was signed in 2010 to promote bilateral trade, eventually foiled the strategy.
“We had concrete evidence that some of the containers being imported by private companies, under PATA, were being used to smuggle supplies for NATO troops under cover of commercial imports,” the official said.
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Smuggling between Pakistan and Afghanistan has long been a profitable and vibrant business. Various trade agreements have been signed between the two neighbors in a bid to contain the practice, but high import and export taxes coupled with little government oversight, thwarted those attempts.
Mostly items like flour, edible oil, lentils, dried vegetables, contraband cigarettes, and animals for meat are smuggled into Afghanistan, while spare auto parts, electronics and unregistered vehicles are smuggled the other direction.
Smuggling is so widespread that it has become the backbone of the economy in towns and villages along the border, where locally it is treated simply as normal trade. The mountainous terrain provides an edge over security to smugglers who regularly trickle across the border without any trouble.
Sahib said that most of the food and oil supplies he has carried across the border for NATO originate from the southern port city of Karachi, and are moved through Peshawar and Quetta, and finally through Pakistan’s tribal areas, which are largely under the authority of various militant groups.
For those militants, the smugglers have been an important source of income. Smugglers are required to pay “rahdari,” or “passage,” an unofficial tax that allows them safe passage.
“Once we are onto the route, it’s the responsibility of those who receive rahdari to ensure we are able to safely enter into Afghanistan,” Sahib said.
Any smuggling that is done on behalf of NATO can in no way make up for the closed borders, however. Smugglers say they carry between 20 and 25 small containers a day while, when the border crossings were open, NATO shipped an average of 250 large containers a day — making the reopening of the borders essential to the war effort.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/pakistan/120123/pakistan-border-nato-us-troops-afghanistan
Here's US Army Times on the importance of Pakistani routes for withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan:
Cargo lines through Pakistan need to reopen for the U.S. to bring troops and equipment back on schedule as the war draws down, the top general of Transportation Command told a Senate panel Tuesday.
Despite increased support from European, Central Asian and Baltic countries to open the Northern Distribution Network to Afghanistan, the U.S. and allied forces need the Pakistan Ground Line of Communication, or GLOC, as the drawdown in Afghanistan ramps up, Gen. William Fraser said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
“With the amount of equipment we need to move ... we need the Pakistan GLOC open,” Fraser said. “Because of the large numbers that we are talking about that we need to bring out in a timely manner.”
TRANSCOM moved an average of 40 percent of cargo through a network of truck, water, rail and air routes — approximately 27,000 containers in 2011, he said. While this was an increase of 15 percent from 2010, the U.S. moved more than 35,000 containers through Pakistan by ground transportation before the border was closed in November. The governments that agreed to the Northern Distribution Network have given permission to move armored vehicles and other eligible commodities, but not weapons, Fraser said.
In the meantime, Fraser said, the NDN is adequate and airlift crews are identifying and moving excess equipment from Afghanistan now.
“As every aircraft goes in, if it has pallet positions, if it has capacity on it, then we are making sure we put something on that aircraft and bring it back out,” Fraser said.
TRANSCOM is also working with commercial agencies to get around the closed border. In November, 39 ships with hundreds of containers headed for Afghanistan were diverted to Dubai and Aqaba, Jordan, where they were stored and airlifted into Afghanistan, Fraser said in his testimony.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/02/airforce-transcom-pakistan-cargolines-022812w/
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