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Convoy brings winter relief to Nato forces
A convoy supplying Nato forces in Afghanistan drove through the Khyber Pass yesterday as Pakistan reopened the crossing for the first time since militants hijacked and looted 13 lorries last week. About 50 vehicles carrying oil, food and military hardware made its way to the frontier from the northwestern city of Peshawar, escorted by 100 Pakistani soldiers and paramilitaries in vehicles mounted with heavy machineguns. The escorts had orders to shoot on sight.

Helicopter gunships patrolled overhead and 100 security personnel were deployed along the route through Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, where armed forces are fighting al-Qaeda and Taleban militants.

Another 450 lorries were stranded in Peshawar, where they have been waiting since last week, as Pakistani authorities reviewed security on the road to Afghanistan. “We're happy about the armed escort, but we have to get the other trucks moving,” Shakirullah Afridi, the head of the PakAfghan Goods Transport Association, told The Times. “People are losing money.”

Nato and US forces in landlocked Afghanistan have to import about 70 per cent of military and civilian supplies through Pakistan - one of the reasons it is a key ally in the War on Terror.
This is why we can't just bitch-slap the Paks ...
After being shipped into the port of Karachi, some supplies are taken by lorry through the Chaman border post between the Pakistani province of Baluchistan and southern Afghanistan. Because of the strong Taleban presence in southern Afghanistan, most supplies are driven across Pakistan, over the Khyber Pass and through the border town of Torkham to Kabul, the Afghan capital. The supply line has come under attack on both sides of the border this year, raising fears that the Taleban are mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and Soviet forces two decades ago.
Posted by: Steve White 2008-11-18
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=255444