US forced to halt shipments out of Afghanistan
Iran Press TV
Wed Dec 4, 2013 9:25AM GMT
The US military has temporarily suspended ground shipments of cargo from Afghanistan through key Pakistan supply route, citing anti-US protests and security risks to truck drivers in Pakistan, officials say.
'We are aware protests have affected one of the primary commercial transit routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan,' Pentagon Spokesman Mark Wright said Tuesday, adding, "We have voluntarily halted US shipments of retrograde cargo ... to ensure the safety of the drivers contracted to move our equipment."
The US decision came after a group of activists from Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (PTI) party forcibly searched trucks for NATO supplies in northwest Pakistan on November 24, to show their protest at deadly US drone attacks.
The Pakistan Ground Line of Communication (GLOCC) runs from Tokham Gate at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to the Pakistani port city of Karachi.
The affected overland route has been crucial for the United States as it winds down its combat troops and is to withdraw military hardware from war-torn Afghanistan, following a 2014 pullout plan.
According to officials, about half of US cargo is being withdrawn via the Pakistani route, while the rest are being taken out through air and sea routes.
'We anticipate that we will be able to resume our shipments through this route in the near future,' Wright said.
This is while Washington has announced that it has alternative routes available to the north through Central Asia, though those options cost too much and take longer.
NATO cargo shipments across Pakistan were disrupted for seven months after Islamabad closed the frontier in retaliation for US drone strikes that allegedly killed 24 Pakistani troops in 2011.
The NATO supply routes to Afghanistan, however, was reopened in July 2012 after then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized to Islamabad in a statement over the killing of the soldiers.
The unrelenting US drone attacks on Pakistani civilians has sparked public outrage all across the country.
Thousands of Pakistanis have staged massive anti-US rallies over the past few days to protest against the killing of innocent civilians by US assassination drone attacks.
The protestors have also called for blocking NATO supplies for neighboring Afghanistan which goes through Pakistan, expressing opposition to the presence of US-led foreign forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
US officials have repeatedly claim that their unmanned aircraft have targeted militants, though reports say thousands of civilians have been killed in the US drone operations in the country.
MM/PR/HRB
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