International
The U.S. military has suspended shipments of equipment out of Afghanistan through Pakistan, citing protests that posed a threat to the safety of truck drivers, officials said.
The move, announced on Tuesday, came after club-wielding activists in northwest Pakistan forcibly searched trucks for NATO supplies in protest over U.S. drone strikes in the tribal belt.
In recent days, there have been anti-U.S. demonstrations in Pakistan calling for an end to the American drone program that targets militants and has also killed more than 300 civilians since 2008, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism in London.
As a result, U.S. officials said they had ordered truckers under U.S. contract to park temporarily at holding areas inside Afghanistan to avoid going into Pakistan.
Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright said the order affects outgoing shipments that the military calls "retrograde cargo" — equipment and other goods being sent home from military units as the units' numbers are reduced in Afghanistan.
"We have voluntarily halted U.S. shipments of retrograde cargo through the Pakistan Ground Line of Communication (GLOCC) from Torkham Gate through Karachi," Wright said in a statement. He was referring to the main overland route used by the Americans and NATO to withdraw military hardware from Afghanistan, as part of a troop pullout set to wrap up by the end of 2014.
"We anticipate that we will be able to resume our shipments through this route in the near future," he said.
As of September, the Pentagon said it would have to send home 24,000 vehicles and 20,000 shipping containers of equipment after more than 12 years of war. The whole withdrawal will cost an estimated $7 billion, according to Pentagon officials.
NATO cargo shipments across Pakistan have been disrupted in the past owing to political strains. Islamabad shut its border to coalition trucks for more than seven months after a U.S. helicopter accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops in 2011. The border reopened to supply trucks in July 2012 after Washington issued an apology.
The United States has alternate routes available to the north through Central Asia, though those options take longer and are more expensive.
"While we favor shipping cargo via Pakistan because of cost, we have built flexibility and redundancy into our overall system of air, sea and ground routes to transport cargo into and out of Afghanistan," Wright said.
About half of U.S. cargo is being taken out of Afghanistan through the Pakistan route via the Torkham Gate crossing, with the remainder being removed by aircraft or a combination of planes and ships at regional ports.
U.S. officials have said the strikes by unmanned aircraft, or drones, have taken out dangerous Al-Qaeda militants. While Pakistani officials publicly criticize the bombing campaign, the government is believed to have tacitly backed at least some of the strikes over the years.
Civilian deaths from America's covert drone operation have also proved contentious in Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has demanded an end to civilian casualties before he agrees to sign a proposed 10-year security agreement with the United States.
NATO foreign ministers have pressed Kabul to sign the accord on the new role of the alliance in Afghanistan.
Officials were meeting Wednesday in the second day of a two-day summit in Brussels focused on Afghanistan and NATO's planned training and advisory mission after it ends its biggest-ever combat operation there next year.
The problem, however, is that Karzai is refusing to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement required by Washington to set up the legal and operational framework for the training force of up to 12,000 troops, likely to be mostly American. Karzai's refusal comes despite the fact that an assembly of Afghan elders, known as a loya jirga, endorsed the pact last month and said it should be signed by the end of December.
Karzai surprised the international community when he said he might not sign the deal until after the presidential election in April. His spokesman said Wednesday that he will not allow any minister to sign the security pact with the U.S. unless key demands are met despite the fact that NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said any Afghan government representative could sign the security agreement.
Karzai maintains the decision to sign the agreement should be left to his successor after the election. He has also indicated he will not sign any agreement that allows for continued airstrikes and foreign raids on Afghan homes. Civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. and allied soldiers have been a key source of contention, exacerbated last week by a U.S. drone strike that killed a child. Karzai also wants all remaining Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay released.
Washington and NATO have made clear that without an accord, there is no post-2014 mission, in which case both military and even development aid could be at risk.
"This is not fooling around, this is serious business," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Brussels.
"I think that it is important for the agreement to try to move forward," Kerry said. "That is what we need to aim for, sooner not later, because that is what is best for Afghanistan."
Al Jazeera and wire services
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