Taleban extract heavy tribute to let vital Nato supplies pass

The whole situation inside Pakistani is just f**ked up. We need our supplies to go through Pakistan in order to reach our soldiers in Afghanistan who are fighting the taliban. But Pakistan pays off the taliban so as to let the supplies through. Not to mention the support the taliban receives from the ISI. Mess up. Times Online

Today the 30-mile mountain passage is once again at the centre of an historic conflict - this time between Nato and Islamist militants - that will decide the future of this region. In the past few months, militants have started hijacking the convoys that bring in 70 per cent of supplies for Nato and US forces in Afghanistan, and most of the food aid. Fifteen miles away, in Peshawar, they set fire to 260 lorries on two nights this week.

Pakistani authorities shut the pass for a week recently and began providing armed escorts for some of the 200 to 300 lorries that cross the Afghan border every day, but they cannot guard all the convoys, embroiled as they are in their biggest offensive against al-Qaeda and Taleban militants in neighbouring tribal regions. In addition, Pakistan is poised to withdraw its forces from the Afghan border if India responds militarily to last month's Mumbai attack.

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The pass lies just inside Khyber Agency, one of Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas which have been quasi-autonomous since Pakistan's independence in 1947. The area has traditionally been controlled by the Afridis, a tribe of about 600,000 people.

The Government rewards them for allowing traffic to pass freely by hiring their tribesmen as khasadars, or tribal police. This year, however, the system has been disrupted by disputes between sub-tribes and other groups vying for control of the three main sections of the road - Bara, Landikotal and Jamrud.

The trouble began when Mangal Bagh, a Sepah Afridi who leads a fundamentalist Islamic movement in Bara, sent his men into Landikotal and Jamrud. A former lorry driver, he said he wanted to stop smugglers bringing in liquor and other illegal goods.