During the current war in Afghanistan, the Khyber Pass has been a major route for resupplying military armament and food to the NATO forces in the Afghan theater of conflict since the US started the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Almost 80 percent of the NATO and US supplies that are brought in by road were transported through this Khyber Pass. Furthermore, it has also been used to transport civilians from the Afghan side to the Pakistani one. Until the end of 2007, this route had been relatively safe since the tribes living there (mainly Afridi, a Pashtun tribe) were paid by the Pakistani government to keep the area safe. However, since that year, the Taliban began to control the region, and so there started to exist wider tensions in their political relationship. Since the end of 2008, supply convoys and depots in this western part increasingly came under attack by elements from or supposedly sympathetic to the Pakistani Taliban. In January 2009, Pakistan sealed off the bridge as part of a military offensive against Taliban guerrillas. This military operation was mainly focused on Jamrud, a district on the Khyber road. The target was to “dynamite or bulldoze homes belonging to men suspected of harboring or supporting Taliban militants or carrying out other illegal activities”.[4] The result meant that more than 70 people were arrested and 45 homes were destroyed. In addition, two children and one woman were killed. As a response, in early February 2009, Taliban insurgents cut off the Khyber Pass temporarily by blowing up a key bridge. This increasingly unstable situation in northwest Pakistan, made the US and NATO broaden supply routes, through Central Asia (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). Even the option of supplying material through the Iranian far southeastern port of Chabahar was considered.[5] In 2010, the already complicated relationship with Pakistan (always accused by the US of hosting the Taliban in this border area without reporting it) became tougher after the NATO forces, under the pretext of mitigating the Talibans power over this area, executed an attack with drones over the Durand line, passing the frontier of Afghanistan and killing three Pakistani soldiers. Pakistan answered by closing the pass on 30 September which caused a convoy of several NATO trucks to queue at the closed border.[6] This convoy was attacked by extremists apparently linked to Al Qaida which caused the destruction of more than 29 oil tankers and trucks and the killing of several soldiers.[7] NATO chief members had to issue a formal apology to the Pakistan government so the supply traffic at this pass could be restored. In August 2011, the activity at the Khyber pass was again halted[8] by the Khyber Agency administration due to the more possible attacks of the insurgency over the NATO forces, which had suffered a period of big number of assaults over the trucks heading to supply the NATO and ISAF coalitions all over the frontier line. This instability made the Pakistan Oil Tanker Owners Association demand more protection from the Pakistani and US government threatening not to supply fuel for the Afghan side.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 04:44:05 +0000
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