Nato New supply routes

**cyppok** · 16 Sep 09,, 01:02

NATO Supply Routes Through the South Caucasus - The Jamestown Foundation

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 6 Issue: 168
September 15, 2009 03:11 PM Age: 1 hrs
Category: Eurasia Daily Monitor, Russia, Home Page, Foreign Policy, Military/Security, South Caucasus , Azerbaijan , Georgia, Armenia, Featured
By: Tamerlan Vahabov

As the situation in the Khyber Pass deteriorates the region of the South Caucasus is becoming an increasingly viable option for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) non-military supply routes to Afghanistan. In March 9-11, transportation and logistics experts from Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan met in Baku to discuss the issues that would facilitate the shipment of goods to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan through the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) (Polit Pulse, March 9).

There are two main routes that are being considered for the shipment of goods to Afghanistan: the first is Poti (Georgia) - Baku (Azerbaijan) - Aktau (Kazakhstan) - Navoi/Termez (Uzbekistan); and the second is Baku (Azerbaijan) -Turkmenbashi (Turkmenistan) (Otechestvo, April 14). Generally, the South Caucasus route has become a viable option because of the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan's Khyber Pass region. The route is also important because of the potential unreliability of the Russian position on supply routes on its territory (Geopolitika, January 12).

Khyber Pass - Breaking World News - The New York Times

The Khyber Pass has been a critical trade and military gateway since the time of Alexander the Great, but like much of western Pakistan it has been besieged by the Taliban.

More than 80 percent of the supplies for American and coalition forces in Afghanistan flow through Pakistan. Attacks aimed at choking the supply lines have become increasingly frequent and brazen, despite the presence of Pakistani security forces in the area. Taliban guerrillas who dominate the northwestern Pakistani tribal areas have pushed deeper into the Khyber region, burning hundreds of NATO supply trucks in Peshawar and carrying out deadly attacks on NATO convoys. Many truckers had already quit driving through the pass because of the danger.

NATO officials have said the militants have so far not interrupted their supplies. But they have acknowledged that suppressing the militants or finding alternative routes is critical, especially as the American troop deployment to Afghanistan is expected to as much as double this year to 60,000. The American military is scrambling to line up alternative routes into Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia.

Theres trouble brewing somewhere and we aren't getting the full story.

If the pass is impassible that means someone somewhere is not telling us whats happening. (maybe its just because winter is coming but I am still thinking something is wrong).

**cyppok** · 17 Sep 09,, 17:47

Asia Times Online :: South Asia news, business and economy from India and Pakistan
(the last 3 paragraphs of the story)

A new Taliban strategy, possibly backed by Pakistan, according to a former Afghan government official who spoke to Asia Times Online, suggests diverting the war from the media-saturated fights around places like Lashkar Gah in Helmand and the notorious Korengal Valley in Kunar adjacent the Durand Line to regions far from removed from the Pakistani frontier.

The Taliban and their allies disrupting the vital peace south of the Amu Darya River is thus creating a more complex strategic environment for leaders like top US military commander General David Petraeus and the chief man in Kabul, General Stanley McChrystal.

With the war no longer confined to rural Pashtunistan, simply choreographing new supply routes to Western forces may not be enough. Rather than cozying up to opportunistic regional political leaders, the US and NATO will need a new, more robust anti-Taliban strategy rather than worrying about how to more safely deliver more equipment to further fuel the surge into Afghanistan.

Basically the insurgency is now in the north of Afghanistan in the previously peaceful regions that are below Uzbekistan/Tajikistan. The transit routes that go through Pakistan with 80% of supplies are becoming unworkable and thats why there is a shift to replace them.

Escalating insurgency in Afghanistan's Kunduz province rooted in past - People's Daily Online

These incidents baffled minds of security czars and political analysts as to why the insurgency had skipped several provinces in-between south and north Afghanistan to emerge the far away northern Afghanistan.

In fact, Kunduz is the only Pashtun-dominated province in northern Afghanistan and it is in the best strategic interest of these marooned Pashtuns to remain in link with their brethren in the south of the country.

EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Afghanistan: Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan Fighters Active in Kunduz
{this is the most worrisome article}

AFGHANISTAN: ISLAMIC MOVEMENT OF UZBEKISTAN FIGHTERS ACTIVE IN KUNDUZ
Deirdre Tynan 9/14/09

Afghan government troops and foreign forces have gone on the offensive against Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) militants who are active in northern Afghanistan.

On September 12, a joint Afghan-international operation began with a raid on a compound near the village of Torbah Kash, north-east of Kunduz city. The mission was seeking "Taliban facilitators and commanders responsible for attacks on Afghan citizens and for aiding the flow of money, foreign fighters and suicide bombers into the region."

The joint force killed "a number of militants [?] armed with machine guns and rifles" and recovered weapons including "multiple rocket-propelled grenade systems" according to an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) press statement. "Generally, those personnel, fighters and bombers alike, move between Afghanistan and its immediate neighbors, as well as [among] Afghan provinces."

Uzbek militants are among those believed to have used Pakistan both as a safe haven and training base. "Fighters may come from surrounding countries, as well as countries beyond Afghanistan’s neighbors," Elizabeth Mathias, an ISAF public affairs officer, told EurasiaNet on September 14.

Two militants -- including one identified as Khalid Ahmadov, a former resident of Uzbekistan’s Ferghana Region -- were recently captured. In a statement issued September 14, the Afghan National Security Directorate said the two detainees admitted to being in Kunduz Province on orders from Tahir Yuldashev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

This is pretty bad.