Peshawar: Pakistan today reopened during daytime hours a key northwest supply route for Western troops in Afghanistan, a local official said, as the army wrapped up an anti-militant drive in the area.

The administrator of the Khyber tribal area in northwest Pakistan, Tariq Hayat, told reporters that the curfew along the Khyber Pass had been lifted from 8:00 am until 7:00 pm (0300-1400 GMT).

"Now there is a free flow of traffic for every type of vehicle" including NATO supply trucks, Hayat told reporters.

"The active operation is over. Now we are engaged in the mopping-up phase of the operation against anti-social and anti-state elements," he said, referring to Taliban militants.

Security forces backed by helicopter gunships, tanks and heavy artillery launched the operation last Tuesday in the rugged area near Jamrud, the gateway to the famed Khyber Pass linking Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The offensive, prompted by a series of attacks on truck depots in and around the city of Peshawar that saw hundreds of NATO vehicles torched, forced the closure of the highway from Peshawar to the Afghan border town of Torkham.

The road was partially reopened for a few hours a day from Friday to allow hundreds of NATO supply vehicles to pass.

The bulk of the supplies and equipment required by NATO and US-led forces battling the Taliban insurgency are transported to Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass.

But the road passes through the heart of Pakistan's lawless tribal zone, where extremists have sought refuge after Afghanistan's hardline Taliban regime was ousted in a US-led invasion at the end of 2001.

Source : PTI