PAKISTAN: Pakistani Taliban destroy supplies meant for Western forces in Afghanistan

Record ID: 352564

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Pakistani Taliban destroy supplies meant for Western forces in Afghanistan
  • Date: 8th December 2008
  • Summary: PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN (DECEMBER 8, 2008) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SCENES) VARIOUS OF SECURITY AT TERMINAL WHERE VEHICLES WERE TORCHED VARIOUS OF VEHICLES ON FIRE CLOSE OF FIRE FIRE ENGINE ARRIVING MORE OF VEHICLES ON FIRE U.S. MILITARY TRUCKS FIRE-FIGHTER TRYING TO EXTINGUISH FIRE BURNING TYRES MORE OF FIRE-FIGHTER TRYING TO EXTINGUISH FIRE
  • Embargoed: 23rd December 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA41WP45N2OCSHIOHGE7FCBN1WI
  • Story Text: Pakistani Taliban destroy supplies meant for Western forces stationed in Afghanistan.
    Pakistani Taliban torched nearly 50 containers near the city of Peshawar on Monday (December 8), in the second such attack in two days on supplies meant for Western forces in Afghanistan, officials and witnesses said.
    Increasing attacks on fuel, food and other equipment for U.S. and Nato forces in landlocked Afghanistan have raised concerns over the safety of vital supplies for foreign troops battling Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
    The militants set ablaze the containers at a terminal used for onward shipment to Afghanistan through the Khyber pass, a major mountainous route for Nato supplies located between Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province and the border town of Torkham.
    A security guard at the terminal said the militants came just past midnight, firing in the air, sprinkled petrol on containers and then set them alight.
    He said the militants told them they would not harm them but asked them not to work for the Americans.
    Administration officials also confirmed the incident at the Bilal Terminal happened just two km (one mile) away from the place where militants destroyed nearly 100 trucks carrying Humvees and other military vehicles early on Sunday (December 8).
    Separately, militants also fired rockets at two trucks carrying supply containers for Nato forces overnight in the same vicinity where insurgents had destroyed 22 trucks carrying food supplies a week ago.
    Most of the supplies for foreign forces in Afghanistan is transported through Pakistan via the Khyber pass, and another main land route from the southwestern city of Quetta to the Afghan city of Kandahar.
    Pakistan's support is seen as vital to the West's efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, whose own forces are locked in fierce battles with the Islamist militants in the northwest.
    Security in Peshawar, the main northwestern city at the eastern end of the pass, deteriorated this year as Islamist militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban forged links in the neighbouring Khyber region.
    People in Jamrud, the main commercial hub in the Khyber Pass, say militants move freely in the area.
    Pakistani security forces launched an operation in June to push back militants from the Khyber region, and a senior police official said on Sunday the government planned to launch an operation soon in the area.
    The growing violence has raised concern about the stability of nuclear-armed Pakistan, as its eight-month-old civilian government is also grappling with an economic crisis.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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