Pakistan stops supplies through Khyber Pass

Pakistan has temporarily suspended oil tankers and trucks carrying sealed containers from using the Khyber Pass, a key passage to Afghanistan, an official said today, a move which will probably have an impact on supplies heading to Nato troops.

The suspension comes just days after a band of militants hijacked around a dozen trucks whose load included Humvees and other supplies headed to the foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistan government official Bakhtiar Khan would not say today if trucks carrying materials for the Nato forces were the target of the suspension imposed late last night, but he said security concerns had prompted the move and that it would be lifted “as soon as possible”.

The hijacking highlighted the vulnerability of a critical supply line for Nato as well as the deteriorating security in Pakistan’s north-west regions bordering Afghanistan.

The US-allied Muslim nation faces a rising militant threat just as its tanking economy has forced it to seek 7.6 billion dollars in aid from the International Monetary Fund.

Lieutenant Commander Walter Matthews, a spokesman for the US military in Afghanistan, would not give a direct answer about whether the convoys were halted, but said “the appropriate authorities are coordinating security procedures”.

“The convoys will continue flowing, we will not discuss when, or where, or what,” he said.

Denied entry to the route, dozens of the trucks and oil tankers were parked along a main road near Peshawar, the regional capital.

“We have been stopped. We are not being allowed to continue our journey,” said Rehmatullah, a driver who gave only one name and said his truck was carrying a military vehicle of some sort.

Asked whether security worried him, he said, “This is our job, and we have to do it, but, yes, we have a security risk every time we pass through the route.”

Many of the supplies headed to the foreign troops arrive in the southern port city of Karachi in unmarked, sealed shipping containers and are loaded on to trucks for the journey either to the border town of Chaman or the primary route, through the famed Khyber Pass.

Monday’s ambush took place at the entrance to the pass, a winding, roughly 30-mile stretch. Police said around 60 masked militants forced the convoy to stop on a slow stretch of the road, briefly trading fire with nearby security officers who were outnumbered.

US officials say the attackers seized two Humvees and a water truck. Eleven other trucks carrying wheat for the World Food Programme were also hijacked, said spokesman Amjad Jamal.