Thousands of NATO Trucks Backed Up at Pakistan Port
Pakistan is still blocking routes to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan
Thousands of abandoned trucks are backed up at the port of Karachi in Pakistan two months after Islamabad closed the supply routes NATO has used to send supplies to troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed the supply routes in November after U.S. warplanes bombed two Pakistani outposts and killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. They have given no indication of when it will reopen, and supplying NATO troops via northern routes costs the U.S. six times as much money – $104 million per month – than the Pakistan routes cost.
Workers and truck drivers were stranded at the port waiting for the routes to reopen, but now they’ve left. “They had no more money in the end so they left one helper with their vehicle for security and care, and went back to their families,” said Mohammad Saleh Afridi, vice chairman of the All Pakistan Oil Tankers Association.
Afridi said more than a thousand trucks are stranded in Karachi. In addition, there are about 5,000 containers and military vehicles, which some say are subject to potential looting or attack. Previously, rockets have been fired at the trucks and containers in order to prevent them from ever getting to supply occupation forces in Afghanistan.
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R.Parker
January 26th, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Maybe some enterprising Pakistanis can take the trucks and start their own moving and storage business, courtesy of Uncle Sam! How about donating some of the supplies to help the victims of the floods there a couple years ago who might still be suffering?
Stefan Reich
January 26th, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Good to ly that Pakistan stays hard on this one.
tomofsnj
January 27th, 2012 at 5:24 am
You can be sure that some enterprising Pakistanis will step forward and accept the responsibility to sell the equipment. I am sure the special forces will notice how much better armed the attacks are.
Leaving one guy behind to protect the load is a joke. It sound more like make sure you get the money from the guy sent to get it.
liveload
January 27th, 2012 at 7:21 am
Conservative estimates that I've heard say around $400 per gallon cost to get that fuel through the Pakistani route to its destination, at least double that for the NDN. So we have more than 1000 trucks with about 5000 to 9000 gallons of fuel a piece sitting around…that's about $2 Billion dollars worth if you use ~5000 gal capacity for the calculations. Simply unreal. In total, there's probably enough stuff sitting around to easily double that figure.
Anti_Govt_Rebel
January 27th, 2012 at 10:26 am
"A pitiful, helpless giant."
pendulum
January 27th, 2012 at 4:56 pm
confiscate them for rent not paid
Mike
January 30th, 2012 at 4:08 am
It’s good to see countries standing up to the US. We’ve been a bully with impunity for too long, it’s gone to the head of our gov’t and military and now they insanely think they can do anything they want. Aiming missiles at Russia isn’t the brightest idea they ever had. Fighting Israel’s war against Iran is another definitely not good idea. Hopefully people will vote in Ron Paul and end this madness.