Pakistan To Soon Reopen NATO Supply Route

Pakistan To Soon Reopen NATO Supply Route

(NSI News Source Info) Peshawar - January 2, 2009: Pakistan will reopen a key route for NATO supply trucks headed for Afghanistan in the next two days, an official said on Thursday as troops pursued militants in the lawless northwest tribal zone.

Security forces backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and heavy artillery launched the operation on Tuesday to flush militants out of the area near Jamrud, the gateway to the famed Khyber Pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan. Troops of the Pakistan army and security forces gathered in Pakistan's tribal area of Khyber near Peshawar, Pakistan to carry out operations Thursday, Jan. 1, 2009. The Pakistani military launched an operation Tuesday in the Khyber tribal region to secure the major supply route to U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, which has been repeatedly attacked by militants. The military offensive forced the closure of the highway from the city of Peshawar to the Afghan border town of Torkham after a series of attacks on truck depots in and around Peshawar that saw hundreds of NATO vehicles torched.

"The road will be open in a day or two for all types of traffic, including NATO vehicles," the administrator of the Khyber tribal area, Tariq Hayat, told reporters in Peshawar. "We have achieved 80 per cent of our objective," he added, saying a total of 159 people had been arrested or turned themselves in since Tuesday, including 116 Afghans who were illegal migrants or involved with suspected extremists.

More than 30 suspected militant hideouts had been destroyed, he said. "The detained Afghans will be interrogated and those proven innocent will be deported, while those found guilty will be punished," he said.

Among the Pakistanis arrested were tribal leaders accused of harbouring militants or organising kidnappings for ransom in the rugged tribal badlands, where extremists holed up after the Taliban were ousted in Kabul in 2001.