May 21, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 18,1424

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WASHINGTON, May 20: The US operation in Afghanistan has had an adverse affect on Pakistan’s economy, causing it to suffer a loss of $10 billion, says a recent report displayed at the official website of the US Central Command.

As many as 57,800 sorties were also flown into Afghanistan either from Pakistan’s air space or soil, the report says.

The US-led operation, the report says, adversely affected the already fragile economy of Pakistan. “Major losses were caused to the civil aviation, tourism, investment and shipping due to rise in the rates of insurance. Besides this, Pakistani exports also suffered adversely and foreign investments experienced a visible decline.”

The report covers the first year of the American presence in Afghanistan, from October 2001 to October 2002, revealing that during this period Pakistan provided five air bases and airfields to US and coalition forces.

“In order to facilitate launching of air operations into Afghanistan, Pakistan provided two-thirds of its air space as air corridor to the US and coalition forces. By so doing, Pakistan had to reschedule or redirect many of the commercial flights.”

Pakistan Navy, the report says, provided landing facility to the US and coalition ships at Pasni. At sea, Pakistan Navy operations and training were curtailed in order to accommodate and facilitate the operation of US and coalition naval forces, the report says. Quoting the US Marine Corps Gazette of June 2002, the report points out that the coalition naval operations at Pasni were “the largest amphibious operations in size, duration and depth that the Marine Corps had conducted since the Korean War”. In all, 8000 Marines, 330 vehicles and over 1350 tons of equipment or logistics were off loaded at the beach and later flown to Kandhar from Pasni.

Since Sept 11, 2001, the United States made 2,160 requests to Pakistan for action against the Al Qaeda and Taliban forces. “Of these, 2,008 actions were completed while 152 were in process.”

Two of the most wanted Al Qaeda men, Abu Zubaida and Ramzi bin Al Shibh, the report points out, were arrested by Pakistan’s law enforcing agencies “during well-planned and carefully-conducted raids and handed over to US authorities.

Since Sept 11, 2001, Pakistan has conducted a total of 99 raids, apprehended 420 foreign nationals and handed over 332 persons to the US authorities. A total of 34 foreigners were extradited to other countries, 38 were released and 16 were under interrogation.

Pakistan also provided airport and sea facilities in Karachi for the operations of the UN-mandated International Security Armed Force in Afghanistan and also extended logistic support.