Keep on truckin images drivers#

(For the Pentagon, of course, any loss, not to speak of the human toll, is too much.)

Last year, in researching the opening of new transit corridors north and northwest of Afghanistan, our team was surprised to learn from Centcom officials that the loss rate of goods transited to Afghanistan through Pakistan is less than 1 percent, a loss rate less than in Bayonne County, New Jersey! In the nine years since 9/11, the total value of goods lost to pilferage and attack has been less than $50 million. The trucks must journey through dangerous territory in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas - PakistanвЂ™s Wild West - and around Quetta, where Taliban forces are most predominant.

What is really surprising, though, is that these convoys are not attacked a lot more often. The daily images of convoys in flames were a stark reminder of the vulnerability of NATOвЂ™s supply lines through Pakistan across the Afghan border.

Keep on truckin images drivers#

The saddest irony is that by closing Torkham, the Pakistani government left its own citizens more vulnerable to attack: All the drivers and workers killed were Pakistani citizens who earn their livelihood delivering essential nonlethal materials on a commercial basis for the fight in Afghanistan. The closing of Torkham left thousands of trucks loaded with fuel and other supplies with no place to go and a great deal more vulnerable to Pakistani Taliban terrorist attacks, which resulted in several deaths and more than 100 trucks and containers destroyed last week alone. 30, citing 'security concerns,' but it is clear that this action was a response to the tragic but accidental killing of two and wounding of four Pakistani soldiers by U.S. Pakistani authorities had shut the gate on Sept. Over the weekend, Pakistan reopened the Torkham Gate, one of two crossings on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border used by international forces to transit supplies from the port of Karachi to troops in Afghanistan.