Imran Khan blocks NATO supply lines

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/SOU-03-251113.html



Imran Khan blocks NATO supply lines
By Syed Fazl-e-Haider
Nov 25, '13

KARACHI - The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Sunday stopped trucks carrying supplies through the northwestern province for US-led international forces in neighboring Afghanistan in protest at the US drone program. North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) supply lines were blocked a day after PTI chief Imran Khan announced supply lines would be closed, fully backed by Islamist parties and groups.

Club-wielding PTI activists on Sunday forcibly searched trucks for NATO supplies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in protest at deadly US drone strikes. They set up checkpoints in Peshawar on a main road leading to Afghanistan and broke open truck containers to check their contents.

"We stopped dozens of containers among which only nine were found to be supplying goods to NATO troops in Afghanistan," The Express Tribune reported Younas Zaheer, the PTI's general secretary Peshawar, as saying.

Khan on Saturday led thousands of supporters in a protest and blocked a road in Peshawar (the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) leading to a border crossing point used by trucks carrying NATO supplies in and out of Afghanistan. The other crossing is in southwestern Balochistan province. Khan, who is backed by ruling coalition partners including Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Awami Jamhoori Ittehad (AJI), urged the federal government led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to block NATO supplies across the country to force the US to end drone strikes.