PESHAWAR: Taleban militants set fire to 20 trucks carrying supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan yesterday, the first major attack on a vital supply route through Pakistan in several months, police said.
Militants stepped up attacks on the road through northwest Pakistan into land-locked Afghanistan last year, exposing the vulnerability of Western supply links just as the United States was planning a surge of troops to tackle the Taleban.
The trucks torched early yesterday were parked at a depot on the outskirts of the city of Peshawar.
“They came in the dark and threw petrol bombs as a result of which containers and trucks caught fire. They then opened fire while running away,” senior police officer Ejaz Abid told Reuters.
Abid said the trucks contained food while a witness said some military vehicles were also being transported to the border.
“Taleban militants fired four rockets on a truck terminal on the ring road on the city’s outskirts and destroyed eight trucks completely,” local police official Gohar Khan told AFP.
“The militants also torched 12 more trucks and trailers.” Khan said police arrived during the attack, in which the two truck drivers were shot and injured, but the militants fled to the neighboring tribal area. “Our policemen exchanged gunfire with the militants for half an hour but they managed to escape,” Khan said.
“The government had ordered drivers not to use the bus terminal for NATO supply trucks after a series of attacks, but they illegally parked their trucks here.”
The US Defense Department says the US military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops.
The route from Peshawar up to the border through the Khyber Pass is the most important of two routes through Pakistan.
The United States has been trying to find new supply routes for its troops after the increase in militant attacks on convoys through Pakistan.
The United States said this month it expected soon to finalize an agreement with Tajikistan that would allow the transit of non-lethal supplies to Afghanistan.
Russia gave the go ahead this month for the first cargo of non-lethal supplies to cross its territory. The cargo went by rail across Russia and Kazakhstan and into Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan.
