Attack unlikely to impact Afghan supplies

WASHINGTON: An insurgent attack that left a large Nato convoy in flames in Pakistan is unlikely to disrupt the supply for US and allied forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

Gunmen torched as many as 60 trailers and killed seven people in the attack on a truck depot south of Islamabad, one of the biggest losses of its kind.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman called it a “vicious attack of some scale” but said it represented only a small fraction of the supplies pouring into Afghanistan amid a major buildup of US and Nato forces.

“50 or 60 containers is not a small attack by any means, but you look at that in terms of its impact on our overall operations, it’s not going to have an effect,” he said.

A spate of similar attacks on convoys near the border with Afghanistan in late 2008, when 80 per cent of US supplies went through Pakistan, prompted the US military to diversify its supply lines.

Half of the cargo – from food to equipment – that the command moves to Afghanistan still flows overland through Pakistan, much of it threading through the Khyber Pass.

Another 30 per cent now enters the country from the relatively secure north, carried by trains across Russia and Central Asia, said Cynthia Bowers, a spokeswoman for the US Transportation Command.

The remaining 20 per cent – lethal cargo such as ammunition and classified items – is flown into Afghanistan.

The spokeswoman said that less than one per cent of the cargo that goes through Pakistan is lost to attacks or pilferage.

Dennis Gauci, spokesman for US Defence Logistics Agency, which is responsible for supplying non-lethal goods to US forces in Afghanistan, said it has shipped 60,000 containers of food, medical supplies and construction material into Afghanistan since 2009.

Of that, 75 per cent has gone through Pakistan and 25 per cent through the northern distribution network (NDN).

“We are working to increase delivery of consumable items over the NDN. That is to open up the supply routes to other things going into Afghanistan,” said the spokesman. Attacks on US supply lines in Pakistan would not be “an overly major concern because we already have supplies built up in the country,” he added.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2010.