Nederland en Afghanistan 185

Taliban destroy 100 trucks in biggest raid on Nato supplies bound for Afghanistan • Islamist leader warns of increase in armed attacks • $10bn given to Pakistan to fight war on terror 'wasted'

* Saeed Shah in Islamabad, Richard Norton-Taylor and Simon Tisdall
* The Guardian, Monday December 8 2008

Gunmen mounted the biggest attack yet on Nato supplies going to Afghanistan yesterday, torching more than 100 trucks carrying equipment at a depot in north-west Pakistan, the main route for supplies to troops in land-locked Afghanistan.
Security guards at two depots in Peshawar were outnumbered by more than 200 militants at around 3am. About 70 Humvees, which were loaded on some of the trucks, were destroyed. Most of the vehicles were reduced to charred hulks of metal. "They fired rockets, hurled hand grenades and then set ablaze 96 trucks," said a senior police officer in Peshawar, Azeem Khan.
The attack came as Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar urged western forces to leave Afghanistan before thousands of their troops were killed in the Islamist group's renewed insurgency.
Omar, believed to be hiding in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan, said in an email statement: "I would like to remind the illegal invaders who have invaded our defenceless and oppressed people that it is a golden opportunity for you at present to hammer out an exit strategy for your forces. The current armed clashes which now number into tens will spiral up to hundreds of armed clashes. Your current casualties of hundreds will jack up into the thousands."
The Taliban has a permanent presence in 72% of the territory of Afghanistan, up from 54% last year, and is expanding its control beyond the rural south of the country, the International Council on Security and Development, formerly the Senlis Council, says in a report today.
The independent thinktank and research organisation says three of the four main routes leading out of Kabul, the capital, are threatened by the Taliban.
Most of the additional American troops arriving in Afghanistan early next year will be deployed near Kabul, the New York Times reported yesterday, citing American military commanders.
The Pakistani Taliban have begun to focus increasingly on choking off the supply path through Pakistan, which is used to take over 70% of military equipment, food, fuel and other vital provisions to western soldiers across the border.
Supplies are trucked hundreds of miles from the port at Karachi across Pakistan to Peshawar, and then onward to Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass.
A security guard at one of the depots said there had been 13 of them trying to hold out against the militants yesterday; they had been forced to give up after about half an hour. One security guard was killed in the shoot-out.
Another guard, Mohammad Rafiullah, said: "They were shouting Allahu Akbar (God is greatest) and Down With America. They broke into the terminals after snatching our guns."
Security was supposed to have been tightened after a Nato convoy passing through the Khyber Pass was recently ransacked. Television pictures have subsequently shown Taliban guerrillas in Pakistan's lawless tribal area driving around in Humvees looted from that assault.'

Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/08/afghanistan-taliban-nato-raid-pakistan