New Afghan supply route planned by U.S., NATO

WASHINGTON — The United States and NATO plan to open and expand supply lines through Central Asia to deliver fuel, food and other goods to a military mission in Afghanistan that is expected to grow by tens of thousands of troops in the months ahead, according to U.S. and alliance diplomats and military officials.

The plan to open new paths through Central Asia reflects a U.S.-led effort to seek out a more reliable alternative to the route from Pakistan through the strategic Khyber Pass, which was closed by Pakistani security forces Tuesday as they launched an offensive against militants in the region.

The militants have shown they can threaten shipments through the pass into Afghanistan, burning cargo trucks and U.S. Humvees over recent weeks. More than 80 percent of the supplies for U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan now flow through Pakistan.

But the new arrangements could leave the U.S. more reliant on cooperation from authoritarian countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which have poor records when it comes to democracy and human rights.

The officials said delicate negotiations were under way not only with the Central Asian states bordering Afghanistan, but with Russia, as well, to work out the details of new supply routes.

U.S. officials said they were trying to allay Central Asian concerns by promising that the supplies would be hauled by commercial-shipping companies only and would not include weapons or munitions. Officials also say that no additional U.S. bases will be required on their territory.

Neighboring nations

Some of Afghanistan's neighbors, in particular Kyrgyzstan, already are staging areas for U.S. supplies bound for Afghanistan, and officials in the talks said these countries appeared eager to increase their role, both to help bring stability in the region, and to benefit commercially from the arrangement.

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan share Afghanistan's northern border, and they have road transport routes into Afghanistan.

Kyrgyzstan, farther to the north, allows U.S. military cargo planes access to its airfields, in a deal that has become more important since 2005, when the government of Uzbekistan ordered the U.S. to leave a base there in a dispute over human-rights issues.

No new bases

U.S. and NATO officials say concerns about Uzbekistan's human-rights record are less important to negotiations because no new bases are under discussion and any increased supply shipments would be handled by commercial-trucking companies.

Gen. Duncan McNabb, chief of the U.S. military's Transportation Command, quietly visited nations along Afghanistan's northern border last month, according to U.S. military officials who declined to identify the countries by name because of diplomatic sensitivities.

"These countries of Central Asia recognize that this is their struggle, too, in Afghanistan," said one State Department official, who said those border nations had responded positively to talks on "how to improve, regularize, expand and find additional routes in."

President-elect Obama has said that he intends to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in the months ahead, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said earlier this month that 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops could be added to the mission, with a large portion being sent in the first six months of next year.

About 31,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan, including 14,000 who are part of a NATO-led mission that has more than 51,000 troops. The other 17,000 U.S. troops operate independently of NATO to carry out combat, counterterrorism and training missions.

Under plans described by the U.S. military, a goal would be to purchase significant amounts of supplies locally from those Central Asian economies. Other supplies could be shipped to Central Asia by air, but heavy-construction equipment and fuel would be sent by rail to Central Asia, where it would then be loaded on trucks for Afghanistan.

Some supplies could be sent from Europe or through Baltic ports, then sent overland along Russia's rail system to Central Asia. Russia today is the principal source of fuel for the alliance, and the Kremlin already allows shipment of other nonlethal supplies to travel across Russian territory.