Pakistan to reopen border crossing

Associated Press

ISLAMABAD

Pakistan said Saturday it will reopen a key border crossing and allow convoys to resume delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, ending a 10-day blockade during which trucks were stranded on their way to the border, and almost 150 were destroyed by attackers.

Pakistan closed the northwest crossing at Torkham on Sept. 30 in an apparent protest over a NATO helicopter incursion that killed two of its soldiers on the border.

Since the closure, there have been almost daily attacks on the scores of trucks stranded on their way to Torkham from the port city of Karachi, and on those bottlenecked on the roads to a smaller crossing at Chaman in the southwest that has remained open.

Just hours before the announcement of the reopening, gunmen armed with a rocket attacked 29 tankers carrying NATO fuel supplies which had been stopped outside a roadside restaurant in southwestern Pakistan, setting them ablaze, local government official Abdul Mateen said.

It was unclear who was behind the latest attack, but the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for similar assaults on NATO supplies.

Pakistan is a key supply route for fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other non-lethal supplies for foreign troops in landlocked Afghanistan.

Though the U.S. has said the Torkham closure has not affected its ability to keep troops supplied, the blockade raised tensions with Pakistan, with which Washington has a close but often troubled alliance in the fight against militants.