Pakistan Blocks Afghanistan NATO Supplies After Checkpost Attack

By Umer Farooq – Express Tribune PK

Pakistani authorities on Saturday blocked the NATO supply route to Afghanistan after an attack on a border checkpost killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers. The attack by NATO helicopters on a checkpost located in Mohmand Agnecy killed at least 24 soldiers and injured 12. Official sources confirmed the suspension of supplies, adding that all containers were stopped at the Takhta Baig checkpost in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency.

“We have suspended the supply and will not let even a single container move ahead,” the official added. “We have stopped NATO supplies after receiving orders from the federal government,” Mutahir Hussain, a senior administration official in Khyber tribal region, on the Afghan border, told AFP. ”Supply trucks are being sent back to Peshawar.”

Takhta Baig is the first checkpost followed by four more check-posts in the tribal areas and is the shortest possible route to Afghanistan.

Pakistan lodges protest with the US
Iffat Gardezi, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Pakistani Embassy in the US, has lodged a verbal protest over the attack.
A Pakistan Embassy spokesperson told The Express Tribune that Iffat Gardezi had contacted the State Department at midnight (Eastern Standard Time). The spokesperson said that Ms. Gardezi had in strong words raised the issue of the death of Pakistani soldiers by ISAF and termed the incident as “unprovoked”.

(with additional reporting by Huma Imtiaz)