Taliban torches 60 NATO trucks in Pakistan

US-led NATO forces are facing a tough time in Afghanistan after Pakistan blockaded the main supply route and the Taliban stepped up attacks on vehicles and oil-tankers carrying essentials with nearly 60 trucks being destroyed in last three days.

Three persons were killed and 28 oil tankers were set ablaze when Taliban fighters attacked a convoy ferrying fuel to NATO forces in Afghanistan in Pakistan's garrison city of Rawalpindi on Monday, police said. A spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn attack on the tankers near a defence residential complex in Rawalpindi, local media reported.

The vehicles were attacked when they were parked at Attock oil refinery for refuelling. The attackers, who were riding motorcycles, fired and threw petrol bombs at the tankers. The militants pulled people out of trucks and shot them dead, said truckers who survived the assault. Security guards retaliated and an exchange of fire continued for some time, police said. Islamabad police chief Kalim Imam said three persons were killed. Other officials said eight persons were injured and 28 tankers destroyed in the attack.

Attacks on NATO convoys are not uncommon but are usually concentrated in militant strongholds in the lawless northwest. Another two NATO trucks bound for the second main supply route in southwest were torched by unknown attackers in Baluchistan province. This was the third torching of NATO supply vehicles in since last week and also the second time a supply convoy was attacked in the vicinity of Islamabad.

On Friday, 28 tankers

were destroyed when militants attacked a convoy at Shikarpur in southern Sindh province. Around 60 NATO supply trucks were destroyed and eight persons were killed in a major attack near Islamabad on June 9. Expressing regret for the deaths of Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border strike, NATO asked Pakistan to reopen the key supply route for coalition troops in Afghanistan, but Islamabad said it cannot do so unless the "reaction cools down" in the country.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen conveyed the message to Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi during a meeting here. "I expressed my regrets for the incident last week in which Pakistani soldiers lost their lives," Rasmussen told reporters after the meeting. "I expressed condolences to the families. Obviously this incident was unintended," he said.

Suspected militants have stepped up attacks on oil tankers and containers carrying supplies for foreign troops after recent NATO air strikes in a tribal region in Pakistan's northwest. NATO helicopters carried out four strikes in the tribal belt, killing three soldiers. As a protest, Pakistan blocked NATO supplies at the Torkham border crossing after the air strikes and the blockade entered its fifth day today.

A joint team of Pakistani, US and NATO officials is investigating the incident that resulted in the death of the Pakistani soldiers. The Taliban spokesman was quoted by TV news channels as saying that militants would step up attacks on NATO supply trucks. About 70 per cent of NATO supplies and 40 per cent of its fuel needs are shipped to Afghanistan via Pakistan.