Jane Perlez and Waqar Gillani have an article in
The New York Times about Pakistan and the recent unpleasantness there:
Dozens of tanker trucks carrying fuel to Afghanistan for NATO troops were torched near Quetta in western Pakistan on Wednesday, the third major attack on supplies since Pakistan closed a border crossing to Afghanistan a week ago, and the first at the only checkpoint that remained open. The latest sabotage came as American officials for the first time offered an explicit apology to Pakistan over a shooting that led to the closing of the other border crossing, possibly laying the ground work for its reopening.
At least one person was killed in the Quetta torchings, after three carloads of gunmen fired at the tankers and then burned them, the police said. “According to eyewitnesses and initial reports, some terrorists came on vehicles a few minutes before morning prayer and started firing and then burned some of the tankers,” said Hamid Shakeel, the deputy inspector general of the Quetta police. About forty tanker trucks were at the terminal, and about half were saved from the attack, Inspector Shakeel said.
Firefighters struggled to contain the blaze. Live television showed the fire raging hours after the attack. “We don’t have foam to put out the fire,” a police official said.
Hours after the attack on the trucks at Quetta, Taliban militants claimed responsibility, according to reports on Pakistani television channels.
In a sign that the government was continuing to distance itself from the attacks, the police chief in Quetta, Malik Muhammad Iqbal, said it was not the responsibility of the government to provide security for the convoys. In the past few days, senior police officers have said the safety of the trucks lay with the fleet owners who had signed contracts with NATO.
The standoff between the government and NATO continued on Wednesday with no definitive word from Pakistan about when the border at Torkham in the Khyber region would be reopened. That crossing was closed last week in protest over NATO helicopter strikes against a mountainous border post at Khurram manned by Pakistani paramilitary soldiers. But, in a sign of possible movement, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said a joint assessment with Pakistan showed that NATO helicopter crews had shot at Pakistani border forces in the 30 September strikes, thinking that they were responding to enemy fire.
The statement was notable in that General David H. Petraeus, the top commander, said: “We deeply regret this tragic loss of life and will continue to work with the Pakistan military and government to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
An even more explicit apology was offered by the United States ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson. “We extend our deepest apology to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier scouts who were killed and injured” Ms. Patterson said. “Pakistan’s brave security forces are our allies in a war that threatens both Pakistan and the U.S.”
It was not immediately clear if the statements would appease Pakistan. An escalated campaign of drone attacks by the United States has also stirred anger there. On Wednesday, news reports from northwest Pakistan said that that six militants had been killed after two missiles thought to be fired from a drone struck a house in North Waziristan. Unknown assailants, never identified or captured by the police, have attacked and torched NATO oil tankers three times since the border closure, and there have been several other, less severe attacks against the convoys. The route is a vital supply line for NATO to carry non-lethal equipment such as food, clothing, and vehicles.
A second crossing at Chaman, near Quetta, where the tankers were attacked Wednesday morning, has remained open in the past week. The closure of the Torkham crossing has been used by Pakistan to demonstrate its leverage over the NATO supply route that courses from the port of Karachi to the Khyber region.
Rico says that this won't be the last time we shoot up portions of Pakistan...
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