Looted goods from US, NATO trucks openly being sold in Peshawar market

Peshawar, June 25: Looted goods from U.S. and NATO supply convoys en route to military bases in Afghanistan, can be brought at cheap prices from a black market in Peshawar, a city famed for dealing in smuggled items.

The merchandise can be brought from Sitara Market, where a bargain hunter can buy military uniforms, shoes, pistol cases, knives, fibre-glass containers, jerry-cans, air conditioners, medicine kits, food items, books, portable furniture, hiking kits, binoculars and other multi-purpose apparatus.

Vendors in the market are mostly local tribesmen from the Khyber tribal region, while a number of them are Afghan nationals.

When asked how these items end up in the market, a local shopkeeper said: "Although US goods are looted when gunmen attack US supply convoys or when full containers are stolen, yet the most modern method employed by the mafia is used to open the seal of a regular container carrying these goods."

"Having done their job, they hire people who restore these containers in a way that the seal-break is undetectable," The Daily Times quoted the shopkeeper, as saying.

Another shopkeeper dealing in electronic appliances said that he brought all his merchandise from Kabul.

According to a local resident, a long chain of people, including local tribesmen, militants, tribal security forces, local businessmen and truck drivers are involved in the looting and smuggling of the items.

In the past three years, NATO supply convoys have been repeatedly attacked in Peshawar and Khyber Agency.