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Guest Post: Furious At Latest U.S. Attack, Pakistan Shuts Down Resupply Routes To Afghanistan "Permanently"
Submitted by John C.K. Daly of OilPrice
Furious At Latest U.S. Attack, Pakistan Shuts Down Resupply Routes To Afghanistan "Permanently"
NATO recently literally shot itself in the foot, imperiling the resupply of International Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan by shooting up two Pakistani border posts in a “hot pursuit’ raid.
Given that roughly 100 fuel tanker trucks along with 200 other trucks loaded with NATO supplies cross into Afghanistan each day from Pakistan, Pakistan’s closure of the border has ominous long-term consequences for the logistical resupply of ISAF forces, even as Pentagon officials downplay the issue and scramble for alternative resupply routes.
Pakistan, long angry about ISAF/NATO cross border raids, has apparently reached the end of its tether. Following the 26 November NATO aerial assault on two border posts in Mohmand Agency in Pakistan’s turbulent NorthWest Frontier Province, Islamabad promptly sealed its border with Afghanistan to NATO supplies after the allied strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
The U.S. military insists a joint patrol with Afghan forces was fired upon first and only responded with return fire and calling in airstrikes on the posts, which a commander mistakenly identified as Taliban training camps, after reportedly checking that there were no Pakistani military forces nearby. Pakistan Major General Ishfaq Nadeem, director general of military operations, rebutted Washington’s assertions one by one, commenting, "The positions of the posts were already conveyed to the ISAF through map references and it was impossible that they did not know these to be our posts."
So, what does this mean for logistical support of ISAF forces? According to Nesar Ahmad Nasery, the deputy head of Torkham Customs, around 1,000 trucks cross into Afghanistan on a daily basis, nearly 300 of which are NATO contractors carrying NATO supplies in sealed containers. Khyber Transport Association chief Shakir Afridi said that each oil tanker has a capacity of 13,000-15,000 gallons. In October 2010 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said that fossil fuels are the number one import to Afghanistan.
Noting the obvious, as Afghanistan has no indigenous hydrocarbon supplies, every drop must be brought in, with transit greatly increasing the eventual cost. For 2001-2008, almost all U.S. and NATO supplies were trucked overland to Afghanistan through parts of Pakistan effectively controlled by the Taliban.
Ground supplies are shipped into Pakistan’s Arabian Sea Karachi port and offloaded onto trucks before being sent to one of five crossing points on the Afghan border, the most important being Torkham at the Khyber Pass and Baluchistan’s Chaman. The recent attack has put all these routes at risk, perhaps permanently. Pakistan, being the shortest and most economical route, has been used for nearly a decade to transit almost 75 percent of the ammunition, vehicles, foodstuff and around 50 percent of fuel for coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan.
On 27 November Interior Minister Rehman Malik, addressing journalists at the Ministry of the Interior’s National Crisis Management Cell, after strongly condemning the NATO attack on Pakistani forces, stated that the resupply routes for NATO via Pakistan have been stopped “permanently,” adding that the decisions of the Defense Cabinet Committee (DCC) on the NATO forces attack inside Pakistan would be implemented in letter and spirit, stressing that "The decisions of the DCC are final and would be implemented."
The major issue at stake here for ISAF and U.S. forces is fuel, all of which must be brought in from abroad at high cost. In October 2009 Pentagon officials testified before the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee that the "Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel" (FBCF) translates to about $400 per gallon by the time it arrives at a remote Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Afghanistan. Last year, the FBCF reached $800 in some FOBs following supply route bombings in Pakistan, while others have claimed the FBCF may be as high as $1,000 per gallon in some remote locations. For many remote locations, fuel supplies can only be provided by air - one of the most expensive ways being in helicopter fuel bladders.
The majority of U.S. tonnage transported into Afghanistan is fuel - 70 percent, according to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Alan Haggerty. The Marines' calculate that 39 percent of their tonnage is fuel, and 90 percent is either fuel or water.
According to ISAF spokesman Colonel Wayne Shanks, there are currently nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, ranging from the massive Bagram airbase outside Kabul down to camps, forward operating bases and combat outposts.
The Pakistani supply lines have come under increasing attack by militants. Baluchistan Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durani noted that last year, 136 NATO tankers were destroyed in 56 attacks in the province, with 34 people killed and 23 wounded in the assaults.
But NATO and the Pentagon have a backup plan – since 2009 they have been shifting their logistics to the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), a railway link running from Latvia’s Riga Baltic port through Russia and Kazakhstan terminating in Uzbekistan’s Termez on the Afghan border.
The NDN is a joint initiative of multiple Department of Defense agencies, including the US Transportation Command, CENTCOM, the US European Command, the Defense Logistics Agency and the Department of State. The NDN’s first shipment was sent on 20 February 2009 from Riga 3,212 miles to Termez, with U.S. commanders stating that 100 containers daily would be transported via the NDN. The supply trains have been given preferential right-of-way to speed the trip to about nine days. According to Pentagon officials, its goal is eventually to be able to bring 75 percent of its equipment into Afghanistan from the north.
But the true number of forces to be resupplied is far higher. Last year the Pentagon's Central Command put the number of contractors for the U.S. military at 107,000.
According to ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Gregory Keeley in Kabul, the NDN now accounts for 52 percent of coalition cargo transport and 40 percent for the U.S., which also receives around 30 percent of its supplies by air.
Cost?
According to the FMN Logistics, the Washington DC-based logistics company that oversees the NDN and provides “full supply-chain management to ensure the smooth transit of(European Union) government cargo from various Ports of Entry including Riga, Latvia;
Poti, Georgia; Mersin, Turkey and Bandar Abbas, Iran, through to multiple NATO/ ISAF camps in North and South Afghanistan,” in January Russian Railways increased rail tariffs for freight by 10 percent and is suggesting an additional increase of 11.7 percent in 2011 to cover “operating costs.” Further east, Uzbekistan increased rail tariffs twice last year.
Bringing supplies overland on the NDN costs two or three times as much as shipping them by sea and moving them up through Pakistan.
And the NDN is not without problems of its own. On 16 November Uzbek media reported an explosion on an NDN railway line on a railway bridge on the Galaba-Amuzang section of track on Uzbekistan’s border with Afghanistan.
Besides the NDN, the Pentagon also uses a supply route through Georgia’s Black Sea Poti port via Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, where goods are transshipped across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, where the goods are carried by truck into Uzbekistan to Afghanistan. While shorter than the NDN, it is also more expensive because of the constant on-and-off loading from trucks to ferries and back onto trucks. A third supply route, a spur of the NDN, bypasses Uzbekistan from Kazakhstan via Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but poor road conditions in Tajikistan limit its usefulness.
So, given Pakistan’s shutdown, can the NDN absorb the increased railway traffic?
Probably, but it won’t be cheap, and will take some time to implement.
NATO’s investigation of the Mohmand attack, led by a one-star general, will release its findings on 23 December. What does Pakistan want to resolve the issue? A formal apology and resolute action taken against those responsible for the deadly cross border air strike.
The U.S. military's Transportation Command deputy commander Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek said of resupplying Afghanistan, "This is the logistics challenge of our generation."
If the Pentagon does not issue an apology, then the U.S. military had better expect “the logistics challenge of our generation” to continue.
Or get out and push and push the HUMVEES and helicopters.
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good for pakistan....the usa / nato wars of imperial aggression are crimes against humanity....
the bushes and rockefellers can learn to get their oil honestly which means it will never happen.
Afghanistan stories made for prime time comedy remember the large bunkers .. mined in to the rocks of hills . large tunnels with steel gates , supplies , yadda / what we saw was a lean2 with a cave about 6 feet deep they did it for sure ,, guys who could not fly a piper cub. bldge three . the propaganda mills keep spewing forth bull sh.....t and the crowd still follows the new hook line and stinker feature of live a lie america . bogga bogga .
800 dollars a gallon eh?
Might as well pull out and let them kill each other.
Remember we went in there to get HIM. Now that HIM is gotten and sunk at sea (So they say) we are finished there.
I wonder what it works out to in pounds per soldier given the amount of fuel transported.
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/vaughan.html
Rule No. 1 for children: If you wish to cause harm to another without being physically attacked, first do whatever to yourself. Go and be f'king yourself until you get a clue is the theme here.
Thank god! Now we can stop sending billions of dollars a year in foreign aid to this terrorist nation. Enjoy your future as a smoldering nuclear waste heap, Pakistan.
Good to hear the cost of war, killing, drug trafficking is getting more expensive for them. I'd love to hear the real narrative told as to why the U.S. insists on spending all it's borrowed money (credit) to occupy this place. A few key people are probably making billions in heroin money while we spend trillions for their security... plus all the free U.S. blood we gave them. Just to make it all happen. Good deal...for them.
This is what happens when combat pilots are dosed up on amphetamines (which are banned by the 'defence' forces of all countries except the US, where they are more or less compulsory). In fact, US pilots use a pharma-grade version of crystal meth.
Not that there's anything wrong with amphetamines (or methamphetamines) per se; used by individuals for private purposes, they can result in a good time had by all and people ought to be the sole arbiter of whether or not they use them (fuck the drug war).
But they are more-than-mildly psychoactive - even something as relatively benign as ephedrine (which I used a little in the 90s) will exacerbate any 'hair trigger' tendencies that make up part of your psychotype.
I often tell the story of the two times I faced more than 2 or 3 assailants at once: the first time, I was 18, in the military, on steroids, and was rendered unconscious (briefly) in a multi-party barfight. I say "multi-party" but I was by myself (and it was my fault: I could have walked away). Unpleasant, but it taught me plenty - the key lesson was that most of the time stuff doesn't hurt as much as you think it will... especially since once you're "out" most assailants leave you alone (sometimes this isn't true, mostly when the assailant has a badge... fuck the Five-O).
The second time, I was 30 pounds lighter, 20 years older, on mild doeses of ephedrine, and the lead attacker never got to throw a punch - I scrambled that motherfucker's front knee so bad that his mates headed for the hills, leaving him lying on the ground and at my mercy (and I don't have a lot of mercy when some fucktard just stepped to me). That poor cunt will never be the same, and it horrifies me how much I enjoyed it.
The point of this is: amphetamines don't just keep you awake and make the world seem a bit more pleasant than it actually is - they also fuck up your judgement, undermine your natural inhibitions to action, and massively augment the body's natural arenaline responses to stimulus... and if you're a government sociopath in charge of a flying death platform, all of those are bad for whoever is in the trajectory of your MIC-welfare-funded 'ordnance' (yeah, fuck the military).
these drones sure are a lot easier to make and arm than your normal stealth fighter.
GOOD LUCK WAR HAWKS WE MAY GET A CHANCE TO SEE YOU AND YOUR HOME BLOWN OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH WITH A LITTLE DRONE HIT. CAN'T WAIT!
The "logistical challenge of our generation" is beng spent in Afghanistan and leaves absolutely nothing of lasting value in this country. Very sad.
How about this for the logistical challenge of our generation: Young people get excited about creating new private businesses and jobs. Genuine wealth creation. That will go much further then all the taxing, spending, whining and wealth destruction we have now.
Reading details about the cost of fuel and transporting said fuel into a country for over 10 years for NO REASON other than some imperial venture when the vast majority of the folks in the US have lost lost lost so much, makes me physically sick.
"NO REASON other than some imperial venture"
Oh contrare mon ami. "The reason" is opium to the tune of $500,000,000,000 laundered through the banking cartel annually. In 2001 Afghanistan produced 10% of the world's opium. That figure is now 90%!Carrier update?
Looks like President Zero just said, "Fuckit, bomb whomever the hell you want. I'm going on vacation."
Russia is also threatening to cut off NATO supply if route if US doesn't compromise on the missle shield
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020475340457706642110659245...
If Russia and pakistan both cut off NATO supply route, then the 90000 NATO troops will be stranded in afghnistan.
Wow, NATO is on a roll, not to mention broke.
Pretty much.
In a month or so we will reach the 170th anniversary of the day that a British expeditionary force moved out of Kabul in an attempt to reach India by overland march.
Amerikans should acquaint themselves with the name of one Doctor Brydon, the sole survivor of the ensuing slow motion massacre, who was deliberately allowed to survive in order that he carry the news to the garrison at Jelhallabad.
Pashtun culture has undergone almost no change in the intervening years. "Western" military tactics, however, have been totally revamped, in favour of a reliance upon technology and non local resources that leave any ground force totally inoperable in the event of supply chain interruptions.
The slow grinding down of the western worlds' capacity to defend itself from the dual-citizened parasite within has been a plan in execution for almost as long as the time since the original Kyber Pass debacle. A repeat is in the cards. At this point the only hope servicemen have of getting out of Afghanistan in one piece is to rebel en masse against their lackey traitor commanders and force a return home to save their respective countries' from the dire peril they are in.
Wow, funny how we will still be killing your pashtun asses 1 week, 1 month and 1 year from today. The US Military is the most baddest ass motherfuckers the planet has ever seen. What happens when cameras are NOT around is the REAL DEAL, grow the fuck up and get some respect before someone stomps a mud hole in yer ass, or worse. Better yet, why not just kill yourself? Your family will be better off and it will save someone one of their bullets which can then be used on your cousin.
lol.
not much of a Pashtun myself Bilbo...but then you're not much of an American, are you?
Sounds to me like some kind of a dirt bag on a six month Blackwater contract in downtown Kabul...takin it up the ass!....or did you get the sack after Abu Ghraib and grope old ladies now for livin on behaffa the TSA !?!?
Total Wanker.
Gunner: OK, looks like we have potential viable targets.
Pilot: Roger that...
Gunner: Are we in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Pilot: Hummm. Not sure. Does it matter?
Gunner: Guess not....
Pilot: How many bad guys do we have down there.
Gunner: Small group...roughly 20 or so.
Pilot: Roger that...do they have guns?
Gunner: Does a camel jockey wipe with his left hand?
Pilot: Roger on that..............Are we sure these are bad guys?
Gunner: .......they have guns........are you sure we're in Afghan airspace?
Pilot: I think so....sure....close enough. Can you aquire a target?
Gunner: Targets aquired....
Pilot: OK, hit 'em...
<bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap>
Gunner: OK targets are down........wait.....I see one moving...
Pilot: Does he have a gun?
Gunner: .......I think its a gun...or it might be a radio....yeah I believe its a gun.
Pilot: Hit 'em....
<bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap><bap>
Gunner: OK....no movement on the ground.................................are you sure we're in Afghan airspace?
Pilot: ..........................maybe........................
Gunner: Maybe? ............Maybe those weren't "Terrys". Could of been Pakistani........
Pilot: Gunny.......does it matter?
Gunner: ......................guess not......they're all ragheads, right?.....let Allah sort them out.
Pilot: Head back to base and a beer?
Gunner: You buying the first round?
Pilot: Roger that.
Roger that war crime, ObamaDrone.
Fuck both Pakistan AND Russia. Pakistan only sends supplies for large amounts of american FIAT $$$'s. Cut them the fuck off and seize ALL Paki assets in the US and any place US has control. We should have INVADED that rat bastard nation in 2001 when BinFuckWad ran there and they hid his ass at their version of West point. Those fucking cocksuckers.
forget your meds?
You plan to invade and overrun a country with at least several dozen tactical nuclear weapons?
Weapons that you can set off as an underground mine and drop a whole mountain side on the armoured division camped in the valley.
Good luck.
Endless wars for banksters is getting old.
The US is going to have to launch a humanitarian intervention in Pakistan to liberate the Afghani supply routes. Everywhere you look, the world is increasingly ripe for conflict. Looks like the early 21st century will be as bloody as the last one.
Send in the Jon Corzine to blow up the other terrorists with his leverage tricks.
Too bad the ROUTES have already been re-opened.
Link? They say it's shut for good.
http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/02/officials-u-s-talked-with-pakistan-before-fatal-airstrike/
SP500 bull vs bear battle reverts to bearish bias after price action on Friday and more downside expected.
My long term indicators have continued to warn of US Dollar strength and EURO weakness and these signals have increased since 2009. The overdue dollar rally should be substantial.
http://stockmarket618.wordpress.com
Over-heard today:
A: "What they don't understand is that in times of crisis, our sector never goes under; fuck the asshole traders, fuck the VC cunts, there's always work for bankers when there's a depression. We're the ones with the skills and who've been trained to repair things, for fucks sake, its our job to restructure countries when it all goes to shit!"
B "Didn't you mean companies there?"
A: <No Reply>
End US aid to Pakistan.
End Pakistani immigration to the United States.
Immediately deport all Pakistani F2 visas.
Immediately deport all Pakistanis with expired H1B visas.
Immediately deport all Pakistanis with F1 visas upon graduation.
We should get out of Af/Pak and let climate change take care of them. China will sell Pakistan weapons and build roads in that country (so that they can roll their tanks onit) but will not donate a single grain of rice or wheat.
Anybody remember why we are dicking around with these two shit-hole countries? Ah, yes, it is about the proposed pipeline... we would like to build it, and not China. Even Obama understands war for profit. War on terror? Come on, that old load of bullcrap isn' bought into by any but the brain dead anymore...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owtsx3pyvSY&feature=g-all
Kyrgyzstan wants the US out too, this is the air supply route used for troop deployment.