ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Russia and neighboring Central Asian nations have agreed to let supplies pass through their territory to American soldiers in Afghanistan, lessening Washington’s dependence on dangerous routes through Pakistan, a top U.S. commander said Tuesday.
Securing alternative routes to landlocked Afghanistan has taken on added urgency this year as the United States prepares to double troop numbers there to 60,000 to battle a resurgent Taliban eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.
Meanwhile, the Pakistani army said it had killed 60 militants in a stepped-up offensive close to the Afghan border, a lawless region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders. Washington has long urged Islamabad to take the fight to the insurgents sheltering there.
U.S. and NATO forces get up to 75 percent of their “non-lethal” supplies such as food, fuel and building materials from shipments that traverse Pakistan, a volatile, nuclear-armed country.
The main road through the Khyber Pass in the northwest of the country has occasionally been closed in recent months due to rising attacks by bandits and Islamist militants.
The chief of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, said America had struck deals with Russia and several Central Asian states close to or bordering Afghanistan during a tour of the region in the past week.
Analysts say the United States’ dependence on Pakistani supply routes means it has little leverage to push Islamabad too hard on issues of bilateral concern, such as the campaign against al-Qaeda.
Also Tuesday, police said suspected Taliban militants killed six alleged U.S. spies in a tribal region, where American missile attacks have reportedly killed several al-Qaeda leaders in recent months.
A tribal police official, Sharif Ullah, said the bodies of the six alleged spies were found at two militant strongholds in the North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border early Tuesday.
Notes pinned to the bodies accused them of passing information to Americans.
