(Adds NATO comment, casualties) By Ibrahim Shinwari JAMRUD, Pakistan, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Pakistan suspended supplies going to foreign forces in Afghanistan on Tuesday as security forces launched an offensive against militants in the Khyber Pass region, a government official said. Militants have launched a string of attacks in recent months aimed at choking off supplies trucked to foreign forces in landlocked Afghanistan through northwest Pakistan from the port of Karachi. Khyber's top administrator, Tariq Hayat, told reporters that a curfew had been imposed and the main road leading to the Afghan border had been sealed. "Supplies to NATO forces will remain suspended until we clear the area of militants and outlaws who have gone out of control," he said. Hayat said security forces, backed by helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks, began an offensive early on Tuesday against 26 targets including militant strongholds. "Our targets are very clear and specific. We're after them and will try our best to avoid civilian losses," he told reporters in the town of Jamrud. The Khyber Pass runs between the northwestern city of Peshawar and the border town of Torkham and is a vital supply line for more than 65,000 Western troops battling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops, the U.S. Defense Department says. The supply route is likely to become even more important as the United States sends more troops to Afghanistan, perhaps doubling the number to about 60,000 next year. A spokesman for NATO's Afghan force welcomed the effort to make the route safer and played down the impact on supplies. "It will not have a major impact for it's temporary and we have stocks and supplies. Overall, it will be a good thing," said the force spokesman in Kabul, Captain Mark Windsor. "WE MEAN BUSINESS" Hayat declined to say how many soldiers were involved in the operation but said they came from both the army and a paramilitary force. Two intelligence officials in the region, who declined to be identified, said troops were meeting pockets of militant resistance, while another government official said troops had captured two militant hideouts. Four civilians and one militant had been killed while seven people, including women and children, were wounded, the government official said. The offensive comes as tension with old rival India is running high after last month's militant attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai. The Pakistani military has moved some troops off its western border, where security forces have been fighting militants in several places, in response to the tension. Hundreds of trucks have been destroyed and several drivers have been killed over the past month and many truckers have stopped taking supplies along the route. The violence has exposed the vulnerability of the routes and forced NATO to look for alternatives, including through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan. There are two routes into Afghanistan from the Pakistani port of Karachi, one through the Khyber Pass and the other through the town of Chaman to the southwest, leading to the Afghan city of Kandahar. Hayat said ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in the region had been warned not to shelter militants. "It's very clear that we won't spare protectors or anyone who tries to give them shelter. We want to get rid of them and we mean business this time," he said. (Additional reporting by Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul; Writing by Kamran Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Alex Richardson)
Pakistani tribesmen carry a man, injured from a blast in Afghanistan's southern town of Spin Boldak, to the local hospital in the Pakistan-Afghan border town of Chaman, December 29, 2008. Two ...
