November 14, 2010
By MARK LANDLER
WASHINGTON — With roadside bombs by far the leading killer of American troops in Afghanistan, the Obama administration has started a worldwide effort to stop the flow of ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer that is their basic ingredient, into the war ravaged country.
But the campaign, dubbed Operation Global Shield, is running up against stubborn hurdles in neighboring Pakistan, where the police routinely wave tons of ammonium nitrate shipments across the border into Afghanistan despite that country’s ban on imports of the chemical. It is unclear whether the border guards are fooled by clever attempts to disguise the shipments as benign or are paid to turn a blind eye, or both.
The problem is compounded by lax enforcement in Afghanistan. While the Afghan government has at least passed a law banning the chemical, Pakistan has not yet done so.
Ammonium nitrate is commonly used in agriculture as a fertilizer. But most Pakistani farmers use urea, an organic chemical, to fertilize their crops, and there is only one factory in Pakistan that manufactures ammonium nitrate. That suggests, American officials said, that some of the caravans of trucks rumbling over the border into Afghanistan are carrying shipments imported into Pakistan, usually under false pretenses.
As a result, Operation Global Shield also seeks to curtail exports of the chemical to Pakistan by European allies like Germany and Sweden. Under the voluntary program, they have agreed to tighten customs procedures to try to make sure that ammonium nitrate does not end up in the hands of the Taliban or other insurgents.
The program also focuses on other so-called precursor chemicals, like potassium chloride, which can be used to make bombs.
“It’s long and it’s slow and it’s tough,” said Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in describing the plan devised by his office in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.
“My goal would be to have detection devices at the borders, so that every shipment would be inspected and verified,” Mr. Holbrooke added. “To do that requires the cooperation of the Afghans and Pakistanis. The Afghans are quite willing, but we have a lot of work to do with the Pakistanis.”
Earlier this year, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan signed a decree banning the import of ammonium nitrate. He gave Afghans 30 days to turn over supplies and ordered training for the police to detect illegal shipments.
Pakistani officials said that legislation regulating the use of ammonium nitrate and monitoring shipments of it was making its way through the Pakistani Parliament. But they also contend that pinning the blame solely on Pakistan is unfair, since some shipments of these chemicals were funneled into Afghanistan from Iran, over which the United States has little control.
“We are as concerned as our allies about the illicit use of fertilizer and other legitimate chemicals that can be diverted to making explosive devices that have been used by terrorists against our troops and citizens, as well as those of neighbors and allies,” said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington.
Smugglers have also become increasingly sophisticated, administration officials said, masking the shipments by packaging them in wheat bags.
Given the host of thorny security issues that divide Pakistan and the United States, the issue of ammonium nitrate shipments can get lost in the shuffle. But some Americans officials believe it needs to move up the list of priorities, since nearly two-thirds of combat fatalities among American and allied troops are caused by so-called improvised explosive devices, many of which use the chemical.
In a letter last August to Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, Senator Robert P. Casey Jr., a Pennsylvania Democrat who has championed efforts to crack down on the ingredients for roadside bombs, implored Mr. Zardari to do more to regulate the fertilizer and tighten border controls with Afghanistan.
“I cannot overemphasize the urgency of this issue,” he wrote.
On Thursday, Senator Casey plans to hold a hearing to assess the progress on stemming the flow of ammonium nitrate. Noting that Pakistani soldiers are also victimized by roadside bombs, he has pressed Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander in Afghanistan, and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to raise the problem with Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
“You’ve got to have a whole series of pressure points,” he said. “It’s not that they should ban it, but that they should regulate it.”
Citing the seizure of 24 tons of ammonium nitrate by NATO troops in Afghanistan in recent weeks, Senator Casey said some interdiction efforts were working. The Pakistani floods also temporarily cut back the flow of the chemical.
But Senator Casey said there were still reports of hundreds of tons a month flowing across the border from Pakistan.
Mary Beth Goodman, a senior economic adviser to Mr. Holbrooke, said that on Nov. 1, the United States began working with Interpol, the World Customs Organization, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to monitor global flows of ammonium nitrate.
“There’s no one egregious producer,” Ms. Goodman said. “The global shield effort is a way to monitor the trade flows.”
The United States has its own history with misuse of the chemical. In 1995, Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols mixed the chemical with fuel oil to create a bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/world/asia/15chemical.html?_r=1
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