Afghan wrestles with protecting NATO supply routes

[unhappycamper]

Afghan wrestles with protecting NATO supply routes
By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, October 3, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan's top security officials are urging President Hamid Karzai to establish a new military-run trucking system to take control of critical NATO supply routes now protected by a rag-tag network of unsavory private security firms slated to be disbanded by year's end.

With the Karzai-imposed deadline looming to shutter the nation’s private convoy protection companies, Afghanistan officials told McClatchy Newspapers on Sunday that they are calling the creation of a new state-run military brigade equipped with its own trucks and thousands of soldiers to ferry essential NATO supplies around the country.

But Afghan leaders have yet to figure out how to confront the most vexing issue facing Afghan supply routes: How to co-opt powerful local highway barons who alternatively protect and attack NATO convoys depending on whether or not they are paid to look after the supply routes.

Creation of a state-controlled trucking system could be the next step in Afghanistan’s efforts to adequately protect NATO supply routes from constant attacks that continually threaten convoys that supply everything from ammunition to food for the 150,000 U.S.-led troops battling Taliban-led insurgents in the South Asian nation.

If Karzai approves the proposal, Afghanistan could create a special military brigade with as many as 5,000 troops charged with protecting NATO convoys, said Gen. Abdul Razak Amiri, the Afghanistan Interior Ministry’s deputy director of counter-terrorism.



unhappycamper comment: Folks, there is no way the United States can prevail in Afghanistan. We will 'make progress' from time to time, but - we will not prevail in Afghanistan.

The last person to conquer Afghanistan was Genghis Khan in 1219.