Nato countries are scrambling for alternative routes as far afield as Belarus and Ukraine to supply their forces in Afghanistan, which are increasingly vulnerable to a resurgent Taliban.
Four serious attacks on United States and Nato supplies in Pakistan during the past month, including two in the past week, have added to the sense of urgency to conclude pacts with former Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan to the north.
Nato is negotiating with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow supplies for Nato forces, including fuel, to cross borders into Afghanistan from the north. The deal, which officials said was close to being agreed, follows an agreement with Moscow this year allowing Nato supplies to be transported by rail or road through Russia.
The deal could allow more fuel for Nato forces to be transported from refineries in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Most of the 75-million gallons of fuel estimated to be used by Nato forces annually in Afghanistan comes from refineries in Pakistan.
Germany and Spain, whose troops are based in northern Afghanistan, negotiated separate bilateral air transport agreements with Russia.
Nato officials say the organisation is negotiating with Ukraine and Belarus for a land route which would avoid Pakistan and the pirates of the Gulf of Aden.
The officials played down the strategic significance of Sunday’s attack in Peshawar, the Pakistani town on the main transit route through the Khyber pass. But independent analysts described it as a well-planned move. In a second attack, gunmen from the Pakistani Taliban attacked a site on the same road near Peshawar. A week ago another 22 trucks carrying food supplies were attacked in Peshawar. Last month about 60 Taliban fighters hijacked a convoy of trucks travelling in daylight through the Khyber pass.
In all 145 vehicles, trailers, containers and two armoured personnel carriers were destroyed in Sunday’s attack, according to Peshawar police.
A British defence official called the attacks “militarily insignificant”. However, independent observers took a less sanguine view. Amyas Godfrey, associate fellow of the LondonÂbased Royal United Services Institute, called it a “hugely successful attack” on a soft target. There were concerns in Washington that militants targeting supply convoys could complicate plans to put more Nato troops into the region. “It is certainly an Achilles’ heel to Afghan operations, or at least a potential one,” said Daniel Markey, a former state department official and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Nato hires private contractors to carry supplies to troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Most are local Pashtun businesses, so the Taliban could risk a backlash if they continue to target convoys. Pakistan is likely to face growing pressure to provide more troops to protect depots and convoys.
More than 70% of the supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan land at the port of Karachi and are taken to Peshawar, then through the Khyber pass to Kabul.
British and Canadian troops based in the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar receive many of their supplies on a route from Karachi, through Quetta and across the border at the frontier town of Chaman. It is a road where travellers are vulnerable to robbers, Taliban fighters and drug runners. There are also protection rackets.
More urgent or valuable supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan are flown in to air bases. But even with extra land routes from the north, more attacks on the overland routes to southern Afghanistan could exacerbate Nato’s existing lack of “strategic airlift”, United Kingdom officials said. —