Pakistan Halts NATO Supplies to Afghanistan After Attack

Pakistan Halts NATO Supplies to Afghanistan After Attack
By ISMAIL KHAN and JANE PERLEZ
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/asia/01peshawar.html?hp


PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pakistan closed the most important border crossing for trucks supplying NATO-led coalition troops in Afghanistan on Thursday in apparent retaliation for an attack by coalition helicopters on a Pakistani security post hours earlier.

Trucks and oil tankers were stopped at the border post of Torkham just north of Peshawar and it was unclear when the post, one of two land crossings, would reopen, a Pakistani security official said.

A closure of the crossing through which NATO and American troops receive most of their non-lethal equipment is rare, and signaled a worsening in the military relationship between Pakistan and the United States just three months before the Obama administration takes stock of progress in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik indicated that NATO strikes in Pakistan were being taken extremely seriously. “We will have to see whether we are allies or enemies,” he said Thursday.

The incident on Thursday followed two attacks in a week by coalition helicopters in Pakistan that had fueled anger over the growing use of drone strikes.

American commanders in Afghanistan, fearful that Pakistan could choke off vital supplies, have been seeking alternate routes through the Central Asia but with little success.

A NATO helicopter attacked a border post at Mandati Kandaw, a town close to the capital of Parachinar in the Kurram area of Pakistan’s tribal region, at 5 a.m. on Thursday, the official said. Three paramilitary soldiers of the Frontier Corps were killed, and three others injured, he said. Another border post at Kharlachi in the Kurram region was struck a few hours later, the official added. The two posts are about 15 miles apart and border Paktia Province in Afghanistan.

The incident occurred as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, was in Islamabad for a previously scheduled visit. He was expected to meet the head of the Pakistani military, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, later on Thursday, American officials said.

The helicopter attacks into Pakistani territory Thursday came after American military helicopters launched three airstrikes last weekend killing more than 50 people suspected of being members of the Haqqani network of militants.

American officials in Afghanistan tried to temper Pakistani anger about those attacks, saying that the helicopters entered Pakistani airspace on only one of the three raids, and had acted in self-defense after militants fired rockets at an allied base just across the border in Afghanistan.

American military commanders say they have become increasingly frustrated at the tempo of deadly attacks against American troops in Afghanistan by the Haqqani militants who shelter in Pakistan’s tribal region.

A spokesman at NATO headquarters in Afghanistan said the incident was under investigation.

Ismail Khan reported from Peshawar, Pakistan, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad.