The US military is expanding its Central Asian supply routes to the war in Afghanistan, fearing that the routes going through Pakistan could be endangered by deteriorating US-Pakistan relations, The Washington Post reported late Saturday.
Citing unnamed Pentagon officials, the newspaper said in 2009, the United States moved 90 percent of its military surface cargo through Karachi and then through mountain passes into Afghanistan. Now almost 40 percent of surface cargo arrives in Afghanistan from the north, along a patchwork of Central Asian rail and road routes that the Pentagon calls the Northern Distribution Network, the report said.
The military is pushing to raise the northern network’s share to as much as 75 percent by the end of this year, the paper said. In addition, the US government is negotiating expanded agreements with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and other countries that would allow for delivery of additional supplies to the Afghan war zone, The Post said. The United States also wants permission to withdraw vehicles and other equipment from Afghanistan as the US military prepares to pull out one-third of its forces by September 2012, the paper noted.
According to the WP, the US is keeping in mind Pakistan’s decision to close the Torkham border crossing temporarily in September last year. The newspaper said the move would address a strategic weakness long considered by the US military as an Achilles’ heel, but with a substantial increase in the cost of the war and making the United States more dependent on authoritarian countries in Central Asia.
