Pakistan blocks fuel to US forces

September 6, 2008


Pakistan has reportedly blocked a major fuel supply route for Western forces in Afghanistan in response to a raid by US forces in northwest Pakistan earlier this week, the defence minister said.

US forces attacked suspected fighter groups inside Pakistani territory on Wednesday, killing 20 people including women and children, Pakistani officials said, drawing a furious response from the Pakistani government.

Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Pakistan's defence minister, said on Saturday: "We have told them that we will take action and we have already taken action today.

"We have stopped the supply of oil and this will tell how serious we are," he told Pakistan's Dawn Television.

Nato has not confirmed the reports.

The fuel supplies have reportedly been blocked from crossing through the main crossing at Torkham on the Pakistani-Afghan border near Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

More than 20 heavily-loaded vehicles, including oil tankers, were stranded at the border in Torkham following the government decision.

Energy vulnerability

A senior government official told Pakistan's Dawn news that an order came "from Islamabad and the Frontier Corps has been asked to stop oil supplies to Nato forces forthwith".

But another official told Dawn in Peshawar that no decision to suspend oil supplies had come from Islamabad, saying instead it was taken at the local level in view of increased fighter activities in the Khyber region.


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