The search for a new main supply route into Afghanistan

Washington Post:

A rise in Taliban attacks along the length of a vital NATO supply route that runs through this border town in the shadow of the Khyber Pass has U.S. officials seeking alternatives, including the prospect of beginning deliveries by a tortuous overland journey from Europe.

Supplying troops in landlocked Afghanistan has long been the Achilles' heel of foreign armies here, most recently the Soviets, whose forces were nearly crippled by Islamist insurgent attacks on vulnerable supply lines.

About 75 percent of NATO and U.S. supplies bound for Afghanistan -- including gas, food and military equipment -- are transported over land through Pakistan. The journey begins in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi and continues north through Pakistan's volatile North-West Frontier Province and tribal areas before supplies arrive at the Afghan border. The convoys then press forward along mountain hairpin turns through areas of Afghanistan that are known as havens for insurgents.

Drivers at this busy border crossing say death threats from the Taliban arrive almost daily. Sometimes they come in the form of a letter taped to the windshield of a truck late at night. Occasionally, a dispatcher receives an early-morning phone call before a convoy sets off from Pakistan. More often, the threats are delivered at the end of a gun barrel.

"The Taliban, they tell us, 'These goods belong to the Americans. Don't bring them to the Americans. If you do, we'll kill you,' " said Rahmanullah, a truck driver from the Pakistani tribal town of Landikotal. "From Karachi to Kabul there is trouble. The whole route is insecure."

The growing danger has forced the Pentagon to seek far longer, but possibly safer, alternate routes through Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, according to Defense Department documents. A notice to potential contractors by the U.S. Transportation Command in September said that "strikes, border delays, accidents and pilferage" in Pakistan and the risk of "attacks and armed hijackings" in Afghanistan posed "a significant risk" to supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan.

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NATO and U.S. military officials have said raids on the supply line from Pakistan to Afghanistan have not significantly affected their operations. "This is nothing new," said Lt. Col. Rumi Nielson-Green, a U.S. military spokeswoman in Afghanistan. "Bandits and insurgents have long proclaimed that they will attack our supply lines, though nothing they have done has caused any real impact to the military operations here."

Yet the scramble to find new routes appears to indicate the attacks have had some effect. The United States has already begun negotiations with countries along what the Pentagon has called a new northern route. An agreement with Georgia has been reached and talks are ongoing with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, according to an Oct. 31 Pentagon document. "We do not expect transit agreements with Iran or Uzbekistan," the Transportation Command told potential contractors.

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Russia agreed this year to allow NATO to send material by rail. The coalition in Afghanistan is working to create an intercontinental rail system that would carry nonlethal equipment and materials for both economic assistance and military programs that would go through Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It would not extend into Afghanistan, however.

Separately, the Pentagon's Transportation Command is seeking contractors who could handle what it projects as about 50,000 rail containers a year traveling over a new Europe-Caucasus route or, separately, one through Central Asia.

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There is another strategic purpose to these raids on the MSR through Pakistan. The Taliban would like to divert Pakistan forces that are being used to destroy Taliban sanctuaries. If those troops were diverted to guard the MSR it would take the pressure off the Taliban base areas.

In other words, the Taliban has motives beyond disrupting logistics for western troops. We should keep that in mind when devising solutions to the attacks on the convoys in Pakistan. It should be noted that there are few successful attacks on these supply convoys once they reach Afghanistan because US air power has destroyed most of the Taliban attacks. We have recently given the Pakistan military money for upgrading their F-16s. It is probably time to put them to use along the MSR.

This story gives some hints at the enemy strategy. It also discloses a deeper strike against enemy units in Pakistan by Predators firing Hellfire missiles. The logistics strategy of the Taliban is a testament to the effectiveness of the actions against their sanctuaries.