Has this problem been fixed yet? Or does ISAF plan to set up a Welcome Wagon and food court for Taliban on the Afghan side of Torkham Gate?

Torkham Gate checkpoint, Khyber Pass
Pakistan side of border with Afghanistan

Thursday, October 7, 2010, McClatchy Newspapers (emphasis mine):

Pakistan blocks NATO convoys but Taliban get free passage

By Dion Nissenbaum

TORKHAM, Afghanistan — For more than a week since a confused U.S. helicopter strike killed two Pakistan paramilitary soldiers, Pakistan has blocked scores of Western supply convoys on the vital route that supports the U.S-led military campaign in Afghanistan.

Yet every day, say taxi drivers, security officials and border shop owners, Taliban insurgents cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan with nary a second glance from border officials.

"Every day, 40,000 to 70,000 people pass through the border, we can't handle it," said Gen. Mohammed Zaman Mamozai, the commander of the Afghan Border Police stationed at Torkham gate. "For us it's very difficult, and it's not possible to ask every single person where they are going and if they have a passport."

"If they want to come to Afghanistan, none out of a hundred will be arrested," said Sediqullah, a 36-year-old Afghan taxi driver, as he waited for Torkham-bound passengers outside Kabul.

Among the thousands of men he's picked up at the border, Sediqullah, who like many Afghans has one name, suspects that he's unwittingly ferried plenty of inconspicuous Taliban insurgents heading to fight U.S.-led military forces across Afghanistan.

Pakistan's willingness to allow sanctuary for Afghan insurgents long has strained ties with the U.S., and its closing of one of NATO's critical supply routes to Afghanistan added to tensions. However, Afghanistan also shares the blame for failing to guard its own front door.

For nearly a decade, the U.S. has spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to cut off the remote, high-altitude mountain trails Taliban forces use to smuggle weapons and fighters into Afghanistan.

Now, the U.S. military is turning its attention to the border crossing.

"More and more we've realized that they are not coming through the passes, they're just coming through the . . . gate," said one U.S. government official in Afghanistan who spoke on the condition of anonymity so he could candidly discuss the unfolding plan to focus on the border crossing.

The U.S.-led coalition is setting up a special task force in eastern Afghanistan to deal with the insurgents who are coming into the country through the front door.

Torkham is one of America's busiest military lifelines into Afghanistan. About half of the U.S.-led military coalition's supplies come through Torkham, which is on the western edge of the fabled Khyber Pass, and the southern crossing at Spin Boldak, Afghanistan.

Not only have convoys headed for Torkham been idled, but Taliban officials in Pakistan also have claimed credit for a series of attacks on fuel trucks along the country's second supply route bound for NATO bases in Afghanistan.

Less dramatic, but every bit as troubling, is the suspected flow of insurgents using the porous crossing to dispatch new fighters, coordinate attacks and return to relative safety on the Pakistan side of the border.

No one can say how many foreign fighters pass through Torkham. Gen. Mamozai of the border police said he suspects that more insurgents use clandestine routes, but Torkham now has the attention of U.S. military officials.

"This area is our first priority," said a U.S. military official in eastern Afghanistan who also agreed to discuss the evolving program only if he could speak without being identified.

The Taliban presence is clearly evident at Torkham. [...]

Mamozai said his forces don't have the resources, intelligence network, surveillance equipment or Western support necessary to secure the border.

In the past nine months, the general said, his men had made only a few dozen arrests and confiscated a few hundred weapons at the border.

Getting a handle on the problem, he said, would require the Obama administration to put increased pressure on Pakistan to target insurgent havens along the border.

"Pakistan is not helping," he said. "The problem is that the international community is not going to that side of the border."

Border corruption and abuse are widespread.

Within minutes of arriving at the Torkham crossing gate earlier this week, two Western reporters watched a Pakistani border guard shake down a young traveler for a few dollars before letting him into the country.

Nearby, a second Pakistani border guard roughly pulled a second young man into a tiny border police shack after the traveler refused to comply with demands for cash.

On the other side of the road, Afghan border police stood by as scores of people walked into Afghanistan without being checked at the last gate. [...]

Torkham Gate-gate: Has Pakistani regime's latest scheme to extort American and European taxpayers backfired?

Torkham Gate checkpoint, Khyber Pass Pakistan side of border with Afghanistan

Saturday, October 9, Pakistan's The Nation, front page:

Govt may demand Rs60 billion from NATO as road network compensation

PESHAWAR – The government of Pakistan is considering demanding billions of rupees from NATO in terms of road network compensation pending for the last 7 years besides imposing tax on owners of containers used for supplies across the border.

TheNation learnt from reliable sources that government is seriously considering demanding Rs60 billion from NATO in terms of road network compensation for damaging roads it has been using for the last seven years for carrying supplies across Afghanistan.

The heavy trucks and containers carrying NATO supplies have badly damaged the Indus Highway and other roads used all these years. Many roads in FATA are also seriously damaged due to it. [...]

Thursday, October 7, India's DNA news agency

US rejects Pak demand, eyes Russian supply route

By Amir Mir, ISLAMABAD

While rejecting Pakistan’s demand for payment of $600 million as compensation charges for using the country’s extensive road network to transport food and military supplies to Afghanistan, the high-ups of the US-led Nato/Isaf forces in Afghanistan have decided to open an alternate supply route to Afghanistan via Russia and central Asia, bypassing the ambush-prone main supply routes through Pakistan.

The decision is set to hurt Pakistan financially as it currently receives a huge reimbursement of economic and military assistance from the US for providing logistical facilities to Afghanistan.

The high command of the US-led allied forces stationed in Afghanistan had earlier warned Pakistan that its failure to prevent rising terrorist attacks targeting the Nato supply trucks travelling to Afghanistan could force them to abandon Pakistan as a key supply route for transportation.

Before Islamabad decided to suspend the Nato supplies last week in the wake of the allied forces’ incursions into the country’s tribal belt, almost 75% of the ammunition, vehicles, foodstuff and around 50% of fuel for the 1,40,000-strong international forces fighting against the Mullah Mohammad Omar-led Taliban militia in Afghanistan, were being transported via Pakistan.

Well informed diplomatic sources in Islamabad say the Centcom’s decision to choose an alternate supply route to Afghanistan was prompted by Pakistan’s refusal to give a timeline for the resumption of the Nato supplies, which remain suspended at the country’s Torkham border with Afghanistan for a full week now.

The US-led allied forces had earlier apologised to the Pakistani authorities over their Thursday’s cross-border helicopters attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers and injured three others.

Reacting sharply, Pakistan blocked the main land route Khyber Pass at Torkhum for Nato convoys carrying supplies to Afghanistan.

However, the suspension of the supplies was not the only action taken by Pakistan as the decision makers in Rawalpindi further decided to claim $600 million from Nato forces as compensation charges for causing damage to Pakistan’s extensive road network while transporting food and military supplies to Afghanistan since 2002.

The Pakistani authorities had decided to bill the Americans while maintaining that the country is suffering a huge loss of around US $83 million annually due to Nato freight truckloads that have badly damaging the National Highways Network, for the last seven years.

They had further argued that the average damage caused by the Nato on main routes leading to Afghanistan, was 20% of the total expenditure incurred on the repair and maintenance of the road infrastructure by the national highway authority.

As to why The Nation didn't get the same memo that Amir Mir's sources got -- from what I've read about him Mir is a muckraking Pakistani journalist, author, and former editor of Lahore's The Independent who is very angry about the Talibanization of his country. From all that I'd assume he has good sources inside Pakistan's military and civilian regimes.