Thousands of anti-government protesters demanded that Pakistan shut the route along which supplies are ferried to US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, adding to the growing pressure on Islamabad’s beleaguered leadership.
The demonstration Thursday by more than 10,000 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar also focused on a recent series of US missile strikes against suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border and Pakistani military offensives against Islamic insurgents in the area.
Leaders of the demonstration drew links between the missile attacks and the supply line, saying the equipment was being used for attacks on Pakistani soil and vowing to shut down the convoys.
“We will no longer let arms and ammunition pass through ... and reach the hands of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan,” Sirajul Haq, the provincial head of hardline Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, told the crowd. “They are using the same against our innocent brothers, sisters and children.”
The supply line — along which gear passes from the Pakistani port city of Karachi and through the Khyber Pass — has increasingly come under assault, leading US and NATO forces to scout possible alternative routes.
Hundreds of vehicles, including Humvees allocated for the Afghan army, have been torched in recent weeks in arson attacks on terminals, leaving several security guards dead. The convoys also are targets in Afghanistan, despite armed escorts.
But US Department of Defense spokesman Bryan Whitman said on Thursday that convoys continue to flow along the route at the rate of about 150 trucks a day.
“It continues to be a viable supply route. That said, we are looking at ways not only to improve the security along that route but other alternatives to it,” he said.
The protest ratchets up pressure on the new government at a time when it is also dealing with a tanking economy and the fallout over the Mumbai terror attacks that killed more than 160 people.
Pakistan’s main stock market index plunged to its lowest level in more than three years on Thursday, as tensions with New Delhi appeared to be rising. India ordered cricket officials to cancel next month’s scheduled tour of Pakistan — a blow to the sport, which had been used to help with rapprochement between the two countries.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including