Looted goods from NATO trucks openly being sold in Pak markets
By ANIMonday, October 11, 2010
ISLAMABAD - Looted goods from NATO supply convoys en route to military bases in Afghanistan, can be brought at cheap prices from a black market in Peshawar.
The merchandise can be brought from Sitara Market, where a bargain hunter can buy American military handbooks on tackling roadside bombs, ration packs, boots and even what appeared to be a helmet for helicopter pilots military uniforms, the Scotsman reports.
Vendors in the market are mostly local tribesmen from the Khyber tribal region.
When asked how these items end up in the market, a local shopkeeper said: “We get our stuff from Afghanistan. It just comes from dealers who deliver all this in bulk. I don’t know if it’s NATO.”
In the past three years, NATO supply convoys have been repeatedly attacked in Peshawar and Khyber Agency.
Pakistan’s Frontier Corps had recently exposed the scale of the NATO thefts.
In a series of raids, they found warehouses filled with tons of helicopter spare parts, equipment for detecting mines, high-powered binoculars and personal letters all meant for serving soldiers.
The entire chain came to a halt at the end of September, when Pakistan shut the Torkham border crossing to NATO vehicles in protest after two US helicopters strayed into Pakistani air space and killed two soldiers they mistook for insurgents. (ANI)
