Afghanistan Logistics: It Isn’t Too Late To Do The Right Thing
BY Herschel Smith
14 years, 10 months ago
There is more logistical trouble with the supply lines through Pakistan (lines which supply approximately 85% – 90% of our needs in Afghanistan). The first report has to do with a bridge near Peshawar.
Suspected terrorists on Thursday blew up a bridge on a link road connecting Peshawar’s Badbher village to Khyber Agency’s Bara town, officials and locals said. A police official said the blast took place at around 1:30am. The bridge over the Frontier Road was blown up as police personnel travelled through the area, the official said, adding that the terrorists escaped the scene. He said that a search was being conducted to trace the perpetrators of the blast.
The second report pertains to a tanker attack near Peshawar.
Taliban blew up a tanker carrying oil supply to NATO forces in Afghanistan on the ring road in the Chamkani police precincts early on Monday, police said. Chamkani police officials told Daily Times that an Afghanistan-bound tanker carrying oil supply for NATO forces was attacked by armed men on Monday morning. They said the assailants fired at the tanker and destroyed it with a magnet bomb.
The third report is even more important for where it occurred – the port city of Karachi.
A NATO convoy came under assault Thursday while carrying supplies through Pakistan to Afghanistan in a rare ambush inside Karachi, the relatively secure port city from which 300 to 400 of the coalition’s trucks leave each day.
Any assault on the Pakistani supply route is worrisome to the US-led forces in Afghanistan, who use it to ship three-quarters of their materials and will need it even more as the surge of 30,000 US troops progresses.
But the attack in Karachi – which is the commercial capital of Pakistan, and has largely escaped the bomb attacks troubling other major cities and the northwest – raises particular concern, especially if it marks the beginning of a trend.
From the beginning to end of the supply lines, logistics is under attack. It still isn’t too late to do the right thing, and engage the Caucasus.
On February 3, 2010 at 10:50 am, Warbucks said:
Bear with me. I get that 85%+- of our supplies come through the port city in Karachi, Pakistan. What is new to my awareness is the label “NATO” assigned to the trucking convoys.
If we engage the Caucasus, we go it alone.
Intuitively, I don’t see anything carrying the label of “NATO” remaining an ally through the Caucasus. What’s your take?