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More trucks torched in NWFP

ISLAMABAD: Militants in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province on Saturday torched trucks and containers bound for western troops in Afghanistan at a NATO supply terminal outside Peshawar in the fourth such attack this week.

As many as 11 trucks and 13 containers were destroyed in the attack, which came hours after the government deployed paramilitary troops to guard the depot.

In just one week, the suspected Taliban militants have destroyed over 300 trucks in raids that privately contracted security guards, and now the Frontier Constabulary, have been unable to prevent.

Saturday’s attack began just before dawn. Unlike in the previous raids, the militants did not use rockets or grenades, but entered the terminal quietly and set the trucks ablaze. Almost 75 per cent of supplies for NATO and U.S.-led troops pass through Pakistan. Carrying food, water, fuel, vehicles and spare parts, the containers’ first port of call in Pakistan is Karachi, from where they are transported by a national highway to Peshawar, and onward to Kabul.

Taliban militants and kidnapping gangs believed to have links with the militants have made the Peshawar-Kabul road, that passes through the notorious Khyber agency, nothing less than treacherous. There have been many instances when convoys have been attacked by militants.

Though the NATO has said the losses so far have been “insignificant”, it is now reported to be scouting, along with the U.S., for an alternate route to Afghanistan through Central Asia to reduce dependence on Pakistan.

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