Afghan-NATO troops convoy ambushed as Pakistani militants and Taliban join forces

AFP PHOTO / HO / NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan / Ernesto Hernandez Fonte

At least one Afghan National Army soldier has been killed and a NATO service member injured in eastern Paktika province.

According to local officials, the incident took place after militants ambushed a convoy of the Afghan National Army and NATO troops.

Paktika provincial co-ordination council representative Dadullah confirming the incident said, an Afghan army was killed and a NATO soldier was injured during the incident.

A spokesman for the Taliban group Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility behind the attacks and said at least 15 Afghan and NATO troops were killed during the clashes with the Taliban fighters.

This comes after Pakistani militants pledged on 1 January to cease their four-year insurgency against Pakistani security forces and join the Taliban?s war against NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The agreement reunited four major Pakistan-based militant factions under the flag of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban chief.

Security experts in Islamabad said the agreement to end the insurgency with Pakistan was a tactical move by the Taliban. It has lost hundreds of fighters during a two-year surge of US forces in its southern Afghanistan strongholds.

The Pakistani militants, too, have been pummeled by security forces since 2009, and by late 2011, had splintered into dozens of factions without a unified command. The agreement coincided with discrete negotiations between the Pakistani militants and thegovernment.

Director of Research at the Fata Research Centre, an independent think tank said: "It will take a lot of pressure off the militants and deepen the tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan. There will be angry complaints by the Americans, and counter-accusations by Pakistan that NATO isn?t stopping raids by Pakistani insurgents from Afghan territory."

The agreement bound together different factions, which had occasionally fought one another over territory, into a consultative council based in the twin Pakistani tribal regions of North and South Waziristan.

NATO military planners are also in the process of trying to figure out how to ship out massive quantities of alliance vehicles, weapons and other equipment from Afghanistan since 2012 sees a withdrawal of US troops from the area. The operation requires the removal of $30 billion worth of state-of-the-art military gear by the end of 2014. However, this has not been easy either as Pakistan has shut down NATO's main transit routes from the port of Karachi in November in response to a NATO aerial attack on a Pakistani border post that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Source: http://www.neurope.eu/article/afghan-nato-troops-convoy-ambushed-pakistani-militants-and-taliban-join-forces

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