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Jun 6, 2014

DANGEROUS TRUCKING * Afghanistan

* Afghanistan - Danger increases for coalition's Afghan truck drivers

(Photo courtesy Faisal Mohammadi Group - A burned fuel tanker after an attack on a truck convoy bound for a coalition military base in Afghanistan. Afghan trucking officials say attacks have increased in the last year, though Afghan government and coalition military officials dispute this claim) 
Kabul,Afghanistan -Stars and Stripes, by Heath Druzin -May 30, 2014: -- The already dangerous roads of Afghanistan may be getting even dicier for drivers carrying goods for coalition military forces: Afghan trucking officials say that attacks on their vehicles have skyrocketed in the past year, since they were forced to switch from private security to government escorts...
(Photo by HEATH DRUZIN/STARS AND STRIPES - A trucker does maintenance on his truck in Kabul. Trucking officials say attacks on their convoys, especially those delivering fuel and goods to coalition military bases, have skyrocketed in the past year) 
Nearly 13 years after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan and ousted the ruling Taliban — and seven months before all foreign combat troops leave the country — major city centers are generally calm. But much of the road network is still riven by regular Taliban attacks, fake checkpoints and warlords demanding tribute. Insurgents have also regularly used magnetic bombs, which they surreptitiously attach to trucks...
(Photo by HEATH DRUZIN/STARS AND STRIPES: The truck depot at Hewadwal Mayar, a logistics company in Kabul. Hewadwal Mayar officials say inadequate security from government escorts has led to an increase in attacks against its convoys and major financial losses) 
The ramifications go far beyond the bottom line of individual companies — the security of Afghanistan’s primitive road network is crucial to improving the country’s struggling, aid-dependent economy as international military forces withdraw and international donor money begins to dry up... Trucking executives put the blame squarely on the Afghan Public Protection Force, the government-run security service established in 2010 after President, Hamid Karzai, outlawed private armed security firms, alleging they were paying off the Taliban not to target their convoys, staging attacks to drum up business and generally operating outside the law... Truckers and industry officials say not only has government security failed to protect them in the year since the APPF took over convoy escort duties, but that the guards themselves sometimes loot their trucks after attacks...

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