Posted by At least twenty tankers carrying oil supplies for NATO and US forces in Afghanistan were ambushed and set fire in Pakistan. The tankers were inside a compound awaiting the opening of the Tokram border supply line into Afghanistan when it was attacked by suspected militants at daybreak today. Reports said that they attacked the compound with small firearms before setting torch to the tankers.
Prior to this incident, two other attacks on oil tanker convoys were reported last Friday after the Pakistani government closed its border at the Khyber Pass near the Tokram border crossing in retaliatory protest over the accidental rocket attack made by NATO helicopters near the Afghan-Pakistani border which killed three Pakistani troopers.
The overland supply route from the port at Karachi to the Afghan border became the cheapest and most convenient way to send essential supplies to help the NATO and US forces deployed in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani military has waged a campaign against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants holed up at the mountains in its frontier provinces of Swat and Waziristan. The US and NATO forces provided missile strikes and covert ground troops in support to the Pakistani forces ( called the International Security Assistance Force) who were engaging the remnants of the Taliban and Al-Queda forces that retreated into Pakistan’s frontier provinces after being ousted from power in Afghanistan during a US led invasion of coalition forces in 2001. Pakistan also provided support by opening its borders and guarding the overland supply route into Afghanistan for US and NATO forces.
But recent public reactions to accidental attacks made by coalition forces on Pakistani military and civilians have led to swaying in opinion against the war on terror. Last Sunday, two drone missiles launched from Afghanistan had killed sixteen civilians in North Waziristan.
In the Pakistani assembly tensions arose against the US intrusions and have condemned the missile attacks as a breach on the country’s sovereignty. But still, the Pakistan leadership agrees with the US and NATO that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban are still out there and are graver threat to Pakistan than the drone strikes. Until there is a complete resolution of the conflict in the frontier provinces in Pakistan, there is no reason to derail US-Pakistani relationship in exchange for Taliban fundamentalism.
Reports say that the Tokram border crossing blockade will be eased within a week’s time and the tankers and supply trucks will resume deployment into Afghanistan.
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