The key supply route, which runs from the Torkham Gate border crossing, has been the scene of protests aimed at the US drone campaign in Pakistan that has killed and injured hundreds of innocent civilians.

Protesters, many of them armed with clubs, had been forcing drivers to stop their trucks and submit to forcible inspections of their cargos, occasionally turning back vehicles carrying NATO supplies.

“We have voluntarily halted US shipments of retrograde cargo through the Pakistan Ground Line of Communication (GLOCC) from Torkham Gate through Karachi,” Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright said in a statement.