News is emerging this morning of a militant attack on NATO supply containers in Pakistan, where they were awaiting onward shipment to Afghanistan. CNN has details:
A security guard was killed and two employees were wounded in the attack on the Faisalal terminal just outside of the city of Peshawar, according to officials. Companies hired by NATO to drive fuel, food and other supplies to troops fighting the Taliban use the terminal to park containers waiting for convoys across the border into Afghanistan. The fire started by the attackers destroyed 62 containers, according to Peshawar Senior Police Superintendent Kashif Alam.
This latest attack follows another a week ago, and plenty more in the preceding months. It’s still only a few weeks since Pakistan’s army chief did a big presentation in Brussels vowing to keep NATO’s supply lines to Afghanistan open:
“We will do whatever is possible, whatever is within our power to ensure that this line of supply is open,” Kayani told top officers in Brussels, according to Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola, head of NATO’s military committee. “We understand how critical it is to Afghanistan … and because we want Afghanistan to succeed we would harm ourselves if we did not do our best to ensure that,” Di Paola quoted Kayani as saying.
But can he deliver? AP flags up the key statistic: “up to 75 percent of the supplies for Western forces in [Afghanistan] pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi”.
