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Sunday, November 23, 2008
Transporting the materiel to fight the war on terror in Afghanistan has for many years been a hugely profitable business for the long-distance hauliers of Pakistan. It is Pakistani vehicles, their owners, drivers, loaders and ancillary staff who have all benefited from the US using the Karachi-Khyber Pass route to supply the 67,000 foreign troops – including about 32,000 Americans – currently stationed in Afghanistan. Almost 75 per cent of all NATO and US supplies including petrol, food, military equipment and possibly ammunition are moved overland through Pakistan. It may not be for much longer.
Militants in the tribal areas through which the vehicles pass en-route to Torkham have made a series of effective high-profile raids which forced the government to suspend the operation a week ago – resuming it last Monday after security was belatedly improved. Tens of millions of dollars-worth of supplies have been lost in the last ten months. March saw between 40 and 50 tankers burned out, and in April the Taliban captured a consignment of helicopter parts – which they will have no trouble selling on the international arms black market. The straw that seems to have broken the camels back was the hijacking of 13 trucks recently, containing among other things two Humvee jeeps. The trucks were recovered, the jeeps were not.
A report in the Washington Post says that the leakage along the route through Pakistan has forced the Pentagon to look for alternative routes. These will be more expensive in terms of the fuel needed to traverse them – but safer. They are likely to run through Europe, the Caucasus and some Central Asian states, but not Iran or Uzbekistan. Agreement for transit has already been reached with Georgia and talks are under way for a similar agreement with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
The supply of foreign armies fighting in landlocked Afghanistan has for centuries been the Achilles heel of every nation that has fought a war there. The British in their numerous military adventures used almost exactly the same route as is being used today – but without interdiction by the Taliban. The Mujahideen almost brought the Russians to their knees by cutting their lines of supply. America and its allies are rich and powerful enough to circumvent the problem by simply walking around the Taliban in Pakistan. If they make life too uncomfortable here, Uncle Sam will simply take his business elsewhere, with Pakistan the loser again. It would have made both economic and strategic sense to protect our goods vehicles in their transit of the tribal areas. The distance is not great, there is only one road and it should have been within our capacity to secure it. We didn't -or couldn't - and it will be the Pakistani haulage industry (and the other big loser, the Karachi Port Trust) that will end up paying the price of poor planning and yet another failure of foresight.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
