Pakistan Launches Khyber Pass Offensive to Support Us-led Forces in Afghanistan

Pakistani helicopter gunships today launched attacks along the Khyber Pass as part of a new offensive to secure vital supply lines for western troops fighting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

Authorities suspended the shipment of supplies to the Afghan border yesterday in preparation for the campaign to clear out insurgents who have destroyed hundreds of supply trucks in recent months.

"Two helicopter gunships pounded militant hideouts while troops moved with tanks to secure the area," said Jehangir Khan Afridi, an administration official in the Khyber region.

The US military praised the campaign and said the temporary closure of the road was not a problem.

Over 65,000 western troops in landlocked Afghanistan rely on the winding, mountainous road for delivery of up to 75% of their fuel, food and other goods, which arrive via the port city of Karachi in Pakistan.

Militants have staged repeated attacks on supply convoys heading along the pass across Pakistan's western border, where fighting has escalated seven years after a US-led invasion.

Pakistani forces yesterday began the operation using artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships in the Khyber tribal area.

"Our forces have killed at least three militants, and the operation is continuing," a Pakistani official, Fazal Mahmood, told the Associated Press.

The militant attacks in the Khyber Pass have exposed the vulnerability of the route and forced Nato to look for alternatives, including through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities did not say how long the pass would be sealed, only that they were determined to clear out the militants. Intelligence officials yesterday said troops had faced pockets of militant resistance and two important hideouts had been destroyed.

Other officials and residents today said most of the insurgents had apparently fled the region.

"There has been no fire from the militants. They must have fled to remote areas or to Mohmand," one resident said, referring to a neighbouring region where security forces have also been fighting Pakistani Taliban insurgents.

Militants disappeared temporarily in June when security forces launched a similar sweep in Khyber.

The latest offensive coincided with growing tensions with India after the November attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, which India blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The Pakistani military has moved some troops off its western border with Afghanistan in response to the tension.

In Afghanistan, US-led coalition forces said they killed 11 militants during an operation just outside Kabul.

The operation took place yesterday about 40 miles (65km) north-east of the capital in Surobi district, targeting a commander wanted for trafficking weapons and fighters throughout the region. Two militants were killed by gunfire and nine others with air strikes during the operation, the coalition said.

The US ambassador to Afghanistan yesterday acknowledged that security was deteriorating. The number of roadside bombs and kidnappings doubled in 2008 from the previous year, William Wood said. Roadside bombings rose from approximately 1,000 in 2007 to 2,000 in 2008, while kidnappings jumped from about 150 to 300, Wood said.

Speaking at an end-of-year news conference, Wood called 2008 a "good year but also a hard year".

Afghanistan, he said, saw progress in the fight against the cultivation of opium poppies, the main ingredient in heroin, with land for their production reducing by almost 20%.

But violence rose and the Taliban insurgency spread throughout southern Afghanistan. The US next year plans to send up to 30,000 new forces to the country to reinforce the 32,000 American soldiers already there.