NATO attacks: the Pakistani view

This article from the Pakistani Daily Times reflects well the rage in Pakistan at the NATO attacks

Embargo on NATO supplies hailed

By Sudhir Ahmad Afridi

Daily Times,

4 December, 2011

LANDIKOTAL: The top leadership of the government and the military in Pakistan principally decided in a meeting of the cabinet defense committee to stop every sort of consignments and fuel supply to the US led NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan soon after the NATO choppers and fighters jets pounded two key outposts of the Pakistan army at Salala in Mohmand Agency in the border area with Afghanistan. 

The tribesmen particularly and the common men in Pakistan generally lauded the decision of the government and the military to stop supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan through routes in Pakistan in the aftermath of the NATO shelling on the Pakistani posts that had killed 24 army troops including two officers besides injuring 14 others. 

The CBR department in Pakistan also on Friday circulated a letter to the custom officials at Torkham and the political administration to stop commercial fuel export to Afghanistan amid the growing prices of the petroleum products and their shortage in the country. Consequently the Torkham custom and political administration officials ordered the drivers of the commercial oil tankers to drive back their tankers to Peshawar. 

The NATO supply had also been blocked in the past for ten days when the NATO fighter jets had attacked a post of the security forces in Kurum Agency, which had resulted in human loss in that particular incident. 

This is important to recall that the then government under Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf had allowed the US/NATO/ISAF consignments to be taken through the routes in Pakistan under a covert deal of logistic support. 

More than two hundred tribal drivers and conductors have so far lost their precious lives in the alien war besides those who sustained minor and serious injuries only in Khyber Agency, all transport union president Shakir Khan Afridi told. 

Lauding the decision of the government for stopping the NATO supplies through Khyber Pass, Shakir Afridi said that more than eight thousand transport of every type was currently involved in the logistic support to Afghanistan for NATO forces. However, he said that tribal transporters don’t care for their own loss as he said that country’s security and sovereignty were dearer to them.

The embargo on the NATO supplies to Afghanistan will not produce negative impacts on the tribal transporters because the tribal transporters were not happy as they thought that business against their faith, Afridi remarked, demanding the opening of the Gawadar port as substitute route of business for transporters. The country’s sovereignty and integrity carry more value than their business and transport, Shakir Afridi observed. The common transporters said that most of the transporters would go bankrupt if the supply remained blcoked for a long time. They said that transporters would not be able to pay their big instalments to the contractors and the real owners of the transport. 

An Afghan driver also divulged that Afghan transporters were also engaged in the NATO supplies via Torkham border. The stoppage of the NATO supplies will certainly affect the transporters, the Afghan driver commented and added that the common citizens will also suffer a lot due to suspension of the commercial fuel export to Afghanistan. 80 % tribesmen and Afghan nationals are involved in transport one-way or the other. Majority of the transporters were of the view that unless and until the US led NATO forces leave Afghanistan, the situation both in Afghanistan and Pakistan could not be made normal. That is why the US forces must wrap up and pack their bags from Afghanistan so that peace could be returned to the region once again. The Afghan nationals and NATO forces are short of fuel deposits in Afghanistan, which will surely aggravate the routine life of the Afghan nationals and will affect the NATO operations, the Afghan drivers observed

NATO drone attacks: US begins pull out from Pakistan's Shamsi airbase

the Economic Times (India)

4 December, 2011

The US Sunday began to pull out from Pakistan's Shamsi airbase that had been used by NATO to launch drone attacks in the country's restive northwest, a media report said. 

A US aircraft landed at the Shamsi airbase to bring back American officials deployed there, Geo News reported. 

Pakistan had set a Dec 11 deadline for the US to vacate the Shamsi airbase following a NATO airstrike that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead. 

NATO helicopter gunships had targeted two border posts in Mohmand Agency Nov 26, killing two dozen soldiers and sparking outrage in the country. 

Islamabad has stopped the passage of NATO supplies through the country to protest the NATO attack. 

It has also decided not to attend the Dec 5 Bonn Conference on the future of Afghanistan. 

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Wednesday: "The US will vacate the airbase by Dec 11." 

The US has been using the airbase for nearly a decade for military operations in Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions.

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