Pakistan: You May Want to Notice This

The story only gets one paragraph in The New York Times, and I haven't seen it elsewhere in US and British newspapers:

Thousands of antigovernment protesters demanded Thursday that Pakistan shut the route along which supplies are ferried to American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The demonstration, staged by more than 10,000 people in the city of Peshawar, also focused on a recent series of American missile strikes against targets suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan’s tribal areas. 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.

So now it's not just "Taliban", attacking NATO warehouses and destroying hundreds of trucks, who are threatening the US-led supply operation for the forthcoming "surge" in Afghanistan. (Take note, Washington Post, which is still catching up with that story.)

And why might thousands of demonstrators in Pakistan take to the streets against the US/NATO campaign in Afghanistan? Before you say "extremism", "Taliban sympathiser", etc., consider:

A deadly United States military raid on a house near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan became a new source of tension on Thursday, with the Americans calling it a successful counterterrorism strike and the Afghans saying it left three innocent civilians dead and two wounded.

Comments

[Simon T]

Speaking of supply routes into Afghanistan, the Taliban has blown up a lorry full of Turkeys destined for Camp Bastion! The Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/dec/19/taliban-christmas-turkeys-british-soldiers focuses on what British soldiers are likely to be eating for Xmas dinner, rather than analysing the devastating psychological blow this has dealt them.

OK, I'm being a bit sarcastic but I would genuinely be interested in knowing whether the insurgents knew they were targeting turkeys.