Feuer Frei!
07-19-11, 09:30 AM
While coalition forces in Afghanistan wage a battle against improvised explosive devices, a Military.com investigation has revealed Pakistani officials are turning a blind eye toward smugglers who deal in the main ingredient used to make the deadly weapons.
More disturbing is that along with Taliban smugglers using secret routes much of the supply has been carried across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in trucks contracted by NATO, which allows them to cross between the two countries unhindered.
Improvised explosive devices have accounted for 66 percent of the overall casualties in Afghanistan since the war started in 2001. The makeshift bombs have claimed 368 troops in 2010; this year the tally has already reached 143.
The main chemical insurgents use to make their deadly bombs is ammonium nitrate, which is being funneled into the country from Karachi, Pakistan’s main financial hub.
“We could deliver you big quantities of the item at a right price,” said Ahmed Jan, a local smuggler -- and one of the few willing to speak on the record. “For a higher price we could deliver you the items in Afghanistan.”
Jan claimed insurgents have been using what are known as “Afghan transit trade” containers and NATO and ISAF sub-contractors and paying upwards of $3,000 a kilo – a unit fee that rivals a worker’s annual income.
“That’s an offer a truck driver cannot refuse,” Jan said.
But while the United States is one of Pakistan’s biggest donors – with billions of dollars in direct aid and another nearly $9 billion in the form of the Coalition Support Fund used to assist the Pakistani army as it fights in the country’s tribal region – Pakistan has never adopted serious measures to support NATO and ISAF forces across the border. Additionally Pakistan has not acted against militants who attack ISAF troops in Afghanistan and slip back into the semi-autonomous areas of Pakistan.
SOURCE (http://www.military.com/news/article/militants-ship-bomb-materials-in-nato-trucks.html)
More disturbing is that along with Taliban smugglers using secret routes much of the supply has been carried across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in trucks contracted by NATO, which allows them to cross between the two countries unhindered.
Improvised explosive devices have accounted for 66 percent of the overall casualties in Afghanistan since the war started in 2001. The makeshift bombs have claimed 368 troops in 2010; this year the tally has already reached 143.
The main chemical insurgents use to make their deadly bombs is ammonium nitrate, which is being funneled into the country from Karachi, Pakistan’s main financial hub.
“We could deliver you big quantities of the item at a right price,” said Ahmed Jan, a local smuggler -- and one of the few willing to speak on the record. “For a higher price we could deliver you the items in Afghanistan.”
Jan claimed insurgents have been using what are known as “Afghan transit trade” containers and NATO and ISAF sub-contractors and paying upwards of $3,000 a kilo – a unit fee that rivals a worker’s annual income.
“That’s an offer a truck driver cannot refuse,” Jan said.
But while the United States is one of Pakistan’s biggest donors – with billions of dollars in direct aid and another nearly $9 billion in the form of the Coalition Support Fund used to assist the Pakistani army as it fights in the country’s tribal region – Pakistan has never adopted serious measures to support NATO and ISAF forces across the border. Additionally Pakistan has not acted against militants who attack ISAF troops in Afghanistan and slip back into the semi-autonomous areas of Pakistan.
SOURCE (http://www.military.com/news/article/militants-ship-bomb-materials-in-nato-trucks.html)