Pakistan Reopens Supply Route to Afghanistan
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan — Pakistan reopened the main supply route for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Friday after blocking it for three days during a military operation against militants who have been attacking supply convoys.
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The offensive, which has used artillery and helicopter gunships to destroy suspected militant hideouts, will continue, but not close enough to the road through the famed Khyber Pass to disrupt traffic, said local administration head Tariq Hayat Khan.
Also in the country's troubled northwest, a suspected U.S. missile strike killed three militants close to the Afghan border Friday, officials and witnesses said, the latest in a barrage of such attacks in the al-Qaida and Taliban stronghold.
Stepped-up strikes by U.S. unmanned planes since last August have killed scores of suspected militants but angered Pakistani leaders, who say they undercut public support for their anti-terror campaign.
The attack Friday in South Waziristan was the second in as many days in the region, a semiautonomous district where the central government and its security forces have little control.
Villager Yar Mohammed said the missile hit an abandoned school in the village of Medan. Two intelligence officials said at least three unidentified Pakistani militants were killed in the strike and two others were wounded.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Pakistani military officials were not immediately available for comment.
Washington usually does not confirm such strikes, which are seen as a sign of frustration there with Islamabad's unwillingness or inability to crack down on militants in the region, believed to be a staging ground for attacks on U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan.
U.S. and NATO convoys have also seen a spate of attacks recently in Pakistan, along the road through Khyber. Authorities there closed the road to landlocked Afghanistan on Tuesday to allow them to fight militants.
Western forces in Afghanistan rely on the road for delivery of up to 75 percent of their fuel, food and other goods, which arrive in Pakistan via the port city of Karachi.
Khan displayed a large cache of weapons seized during the operation so far — including heavy machine guns and rocket launchers — and said 43 suspected militants had been arrested. Some looted supplies were also recovered, he said.
The U.S. military has praised the Pakistani campaign in Khyber and said the temporary closure of the road was not a problem.
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