Key cargo pass for troop supplies shut along Pakistan border

 Pakistan has temporarily halted the movement of oil tankers and container trucks along a key passageway on its western border with Afghanistan, AP reported Sunday.

   The move, said the report, threatens a key supply route for U.S. and NATO troops patrolling the dangerous border region between the two nations. Dozens of trucks and tankers were said to be idled on a main road outside Peshawar, the capital of the region.

   The road has been shut as U.S. operations in the area have increased, leading to tension between Taliban, al Qaeda and Pakistan fighters. It reached a head last week when a band of militants hijacked a convoy of a dozen cargo trucks.

   A spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan told AP the armed forces would find a way to get needed supplies to troops, declining to specify which route.

   Many of the supplies headed to foreign troops arrive in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi in unmarked, sealed shipping containers and are loaded onto trucks for the journey either to the border town of Chaman or the primary route, through the famed Khyber Pass, the report said.

   An official quoted in the story said it was possible the pass could be reopened as soon as today. 

Source: American Shipper