By Imtiaz Shah

KARACHI, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Many Pakistani truckers have halted taking supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan because of an upsurge in militant attacks on goods and equipment trucked through Pakistan, transport company officials said on Monday.

NATO has been looking for alternatives to the main supply route in Pakistan after a surge in attacks by al Qaeda-linked militants, including the destruction of about 300 trucks in five attacks last week.

While some trucks were getting through to the border on Monday, a main truckers' association said it had stopped sending goods to northwest Pakistan from the country's main port in Karachi.

"We have stopped supplies for NATO forces for security reasons," said Noor Khan Niazi, president of the Karachi Goods Carriers Association.

His members truck most Western military supplies from Karachi port to depots on the outskirts of northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. From there, Peshawar-based truckers take the goods through the Khyber Pass to the border crossing at Torkham.

"They are killing drivers and destroying everything. We have sent nothing for the last eight to 10 days," Niazi said.

About 75 percent of the vehicles, parts, weapons, fuel, water and food needed to sustain more than 60,000 Western troops in Afghanistan move through the pass and a second overland route to the south between Pakistan's Quetta and Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Western military officials have played down the attacks, saying these have not affected combat operations, but Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has acknowledged growing worry about security on the overland route.

"We're all increasingly concerned. But in that concern, we've worked pretty hard to develop options," the top U.S. military officer told reporters in Washington last week.

"TOTALLY STOPPED"

The commander of NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, told a news conference in Kabul on Sunday that NATO was in talks with Afghanistan's northern neighbours to allow shipment of more supplies.

McKiernan said most fuel for foreign troops comes from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and the U.S. military confirmed it receives 350,000 gallons (1.6 million litres) of fuel from Afghanistan's northern neighbours.

Some transporters in Peshawar, who are responsible for trucking supplies from depots there to the border, said the attacks had made it impossible for them to maintain supplies.

Ishtiar Afridi, a member of the Khyber Transporters' Association, said he and his colleagues moved the majority of food supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan but they had stopped making runs to Torkham.

"We transport 80 percent of supplies, which has now been totally stopped," said Afridi.

But another Peshawar transporter, Kifayatullah Jan, manager of the Port World Logistics, said drivers had resumed taking supplies up the border on Monday after a Muslim holiday last week.

"We've started sending supplies to Afghanistan from today and are trying to do it as quickly as possible because of the security concerns," Jan said.

Fida Mohammad Bangash, a senior government official in the Khyber region, played down the disruption to supplies saying 191 trucks went to the border on Monday. (Additional report by Faris Ali and Kamran Haider; Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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