Pakistan blocks NATO's Afghan-bound supply trucks after airstrike, killed 3 soldiers!

[pkpatriotic]

Pakistan blocks NATO's Afghan-bound supply trucks after airstrike that officials say killed 3 soldiers

By Karin Brulliard
Thursday, September 30, 2010; 4:24 AM

KABUL - Pakistani officials said Thursday that they had blocked NATO supply trucks from entering Afghanistan at one key border post after an early morning NATO airstrike that they said killed three Pakistani border security soldiers.

A senior military official said the move was made in protest of that attack and other recent NATO airstrikes in Pakistan. Pakistan believes the strikes have been carried out as "pressure tactics" meant to force the Pakistani army to conduct operations against al-Qaeda and Afghan insurgents based in the mountainous tribal area of North Waziristan, the official said.

"There is no justification for these attacks and they must come to an end with immediate effect," the military official said.

The blockade comes days after Pakistan protested NATO airstrikes that killed insurgents inside Pakistan and threatened to cut off supply routes. A security official said another NATO airstrike early today hit a different border post in Khurram Agency, a region in Pakistan's tribal belt that borders Afghanistan's Khost province, killing three soldiers and wounding three others.

Officials at the Torkham border post and in the region said they had been ordered by federal officials to stop NATO convoys. A security official said a NATO airstrike early today hit a different border post in Khurram Agency, a region in Pakistan's tribal belt that borders Afghanistan's Khost province, killing three soldiers and wounding three others.

Pakistan has reported the alleged deaths to NATO forces in Afghanistan, and NATO is investigating whether the report is linked to an airstrike this morning against insurgents in Paktia province, which also borders Pakistan, said Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a NATO spokesman. The international forces involved in that operation said the insurgents fired mortars at a coalition base from a spot inside Afghanistan and that helicopters did not cross into Pakistani airspace, Dorrian said.

Dorrian said NATO was also investing whether supply lines had been blocked.

The allegations could aggravate relations between the United States and Pakistan, whose rugged mountains are used by Afghan militants as safe havens. While Pakistan is an ally in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, it does not allow international combat troops or operations on its soil. The Torkham pass is the most crucial supply line for international forces in Afghanistan.

On Monday, Pakistan protested what it said was NATO helicopters' recent use of Pakistani airspace to attack insurgents in Pakistan. It called the moves a violation of the United Nations mandate for coalition forces in Afghanistan, which requires operations to stop at the border. NATO said Tuesday that helicopters killed more than 30 militants inside Pakistan after Afghan forces were attacked from the Pakistani side of the border.

CIA drone strikes targeting Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan -- which Pakistan approves but publicly eschews, according to U.S. officials -- are deeply unpopular in Pakistan, where many believe they also kill civilians. The U.S. has sharply escalated such strikes this month, particularly in North Waziristan, which American officials have long asked Pakistan to target.

A Pakistani security official said today that NATO "should not have violated and breached Pakistani sovereignty." Pakistani military officials said they were planning to hold a news conference today about the incidents.

Special correspondents Haq Nawaz Khan and Shaiq Hussain in Pakistan contributed to this report.

 

[Ahmad]

please merge all these threads. what is happening today? there is nato/baburi masjid everywhere, i cant catch with all these threads, merge them toghether to make it easier for the members to respond to all of themn.

 

[Bas_tum_Pak]

Pakistan blocks NATO's Afghan-bound supply trucks after airstrike that officials say killed 3 soldiers

Nice move but, Is This Authentic news?

I am feeling so much sad today, Why Pakistan Army not taking any Serious Actions Against Them ?

 

[IceCold]

And what do we plan to gain out of this. This is just a show for the domestic consumption. Who gives a **** if 3 soldiers got killed, after all they were Pakistanis, they cant expect anything better.

 

[graphican]

Don't block them please, let them travel but to our weapon storage areas. Let NATO "weap" that we took their weapons. Don't worry we have lots of lollipops for them to suck on and forget their weapons.

 

[somebozo]

they might be trying a litmus test of Pakistani reaction..

 

[Desert Fox]

where's the link?

 

[Pasban]

US-led strike kills 3 Pakistani militiamen

At least three Pakistani militiamen have been killed and several others injured in an attack by non-UN-sanctioned airstrike by US-led forces stationed in Afghanistan.


US-led NATO helicopters attacked a military checkpoint in Pakistan's Kurram tribal region near Afghanistan's border on Thursday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

Pakistani airspace was violated by two gunship helicopters in a Thursday pre-dawn assault, the correspondent added.

The violation is the third attack by foreign troops in Pakistani territories within a week.

The United States has significantly stepped up its bombings in Pakistan in recent weeks, carrying out at least 20 non-UN-sanctioned attacks in September.

US officials announced on Wednesday that the 20 drone attacks were the highest monthly figure so far.

AGB/JG/HRF

PressTV - US-led strike kills 3 Pakistani militiamen

 

[QADRI]

Block them but don't kill our soldiers...

 

[Tuahaa]

Great. Now they think they can trample in and out of our country!


We better get our shape together. We are a country, not a loose connection of slaves!

 

[SpArK]

Gunmen torch NATO supply trucks in Pakistan
By Hasan Mansoor (AFP)

KARACHI — Heavily armed gunmen in Pakistan set ablaze more than two dozen trucks and tankers carrying fuel and supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, one day after Pakistan closed the border to the convoys.
Employing rocket launchers and assault rifles, it was the biggest such attack in southern Pakistan. Ambushes of NATO convoys are not uncommon, but are normally concentrated in strongholds of Islamist militants in the northwest.
Towering walls of flame engulfed the vehicles, which had been parked behind a petrol station on the highway leading north from Karachi, the port where NATO supplies are offloaded for the long road trip through Pakistan.
"Around 20 attackers armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles attacked these trucks. They set ablaze 27 trucks parked there," Shikarpur district police chief Abdul Hameed Khoso told AFP of the pre-dawn attack.
Police said they had picked up around 10 suspects and were scouring the area for leads after the attack, which has shocked the south.
"This is the first major attack on NATO trucks in Sindh," Sindh provincial government spokesman Jamil Soomro confirmed to AFP.
The police chief, Khoso, said: "We suspect that some elements belonging to extremist organisations are behind the attack, who want to disrupt peace."
Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have been blamed for attacks that have killed more than 3,700 people across Pakistan in revenge for the government's alliance with the United States in the war in Afghanistan and on militancy.
The militants have carved out bases in border areas with Afghanistan that lie outside direct government control and which Washington considers an Al-Qaeda headquarters and possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden.
The region is being subject to a huge increase in US missile strikes and was reportedly where Al-Qaeda hatched a plot to attack cities in Britain, France and Germany uncovered by Western intelligence agencies.
Four cross-border raids by NATO helicopters based in Afghanistan have been reported in the tribal belt in the last week and Pakistan on Thursday lodged protests with visiting CIA chief Leon Panetta.
"The government of Pakistan strongly disapproves any incident of violation of its sovereignty. Any violation of internationally agreed principles is counter-productive and unacceptable," President Asif Ali Zardari said.
Pakistan shut the main land route for NATO supplies into Afghanistan after the military accused alliance helicopters of killing three Pakistani soldiers early Thursday in the Kurram district.
Officials said the route remained blocked Friday and that no NATO supplies were being allowed to enter Afghanistan for the second consecutive day through the Torkham border crossing in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber district.
"Trucks carrying fuel and other goods for NATO are still not allowed to enter Afghanistan," an administrative official at Torkham told AFP.
A security official in the northwestern city of Peshawar said no orders had been received to restore the supplies for NATO.
US officials say they are hopeful that they can resolve the issue in talks with Pakistani counterparts.
US Senator John Kerry, one of the architects of a 7.5 billion dollar US aid package for Pakistan, spoke to Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani by telephone and afterwards told AFP: "I think we will work through this."
"Obviously they are concerned -- and ought to be -- when there is collateral damage. We need to try to avoid it, and we do," said Kerry.
NATO confirmed its aircraft entered Pakistani airspace and killed "several armed individuals," but said crews acted in self-defence after believing they had been fired at from the ground.
Although Pakistan is a key US ally, its powerful military has been accused of playing a double game by supporting Afghan Taliban, which are fighting a nine-year insurgency against now more than 152,000 US-led foreign troops.
Copyright © 2010 AFP