U.S. ships military equipment out of Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The United States began its withdrawal from Afghanistan in earnest, officials said yesterday, sending the first of what will be tens of thousands of containers home through a once-blocked land route through Pakistan.

The weekend shipment of 50 containers came as a new U.S. commander took control of U.S. and NATO forces to guide the coalition through the end stages of a war that has lasted more than 11 years.

The containers were in the first convoys to cross into Pakistan as part of the pullout, said Marcus Spade, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, meanwhile, faced his first headache just one day after taking command, when an Afghan government panel acknowledged that detainees taken off the battlefield by coalition and Afghan troops face widespread torture at the hands of local security forces -- although it denied systematic torture in government-run prisons.

Dunford's predecessor, Marine Gen. John Allen, had urged the government to investigate allegations of detainee abuse.

Allen also had the delicate task of improving relations with Pakistan, which closed two key land routes to its southern port of Karachi to all U.S. and NATO cargo for seven months. The Pakistani move was in retaliation for U.S. airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops along the border in November 2011. Islamabad reopened the route after Washington apologized.

While the Pakistan route was closed, the United States had to use a longer, more costly path that runs north out of Afghanistan through Central Asia and Russia.