(Adds call to EU on police trainers) BRUSSELS, Dec 9 (Reuters) - NATO said on Tuesday militants could not seriously disrupt its supply routes to Afghanistan, despite a weekend attack on a Western supply convoy in Pakistan that destroyed close to 100 military vehicles. "They should be under no illusion that they can seriously disrupt the lines of communication for NATO because we have alternatives," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news briefing. Pakistani militants attacked a parked convoy of trucks carrying military vehicles for Western forces in Afghanistan near the northwestern town of Peshawar early on Sunday, destroying 96 trucks, police said. NATO and U.S. officials have been pursuing alternative supply routes that would make Western forces in Afghanistan less dependent on the overland route via Pakistan. NATO already transports supplies across Russia using an air bridge and in April signed a deal allowing it to use Russian land transit of non-lethal supplies. However talks are still going on with Afghanistan's neighbours Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan for the goods to reach the Afghan border. Separately, Afghanistan's Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, who will visit NATO on Wednesday, called on the European Union to step up its police training and reform mission EUPOL ahead of presidential elections due next year. "We are here to advocate additional support and resources for EUPOL so it can live up to expectations," he told a joint news conference with EU Special Representative for Afghanistan Ettore Sequi. "With a view to the elections, some of these programmes will have to be accelerated," he said. EU ministers agreed in May on a long-term objective of doubling the size of the mission to around 400 trainers. It currently numbers 169 international and 91 local staff. Western backers of the Afghan government see police reform as crucial to combating a worsening Islamist insurgency and the ultimate aim of handing over all security duties to Afghan forces. The EU approach to police reform has been criticised, particularly in the United States, as being too slow in bringing law and order to a country faced with endemic corruption and insurgency.
People stand beside burnt military vehicles on the outskirts of Peshawar December 7, 2008. Hordes of Pakistani militants set on fire 96 trucks carrying Humvees and military vehicles for Western forces ...
Afghanistan
