NATO supply attacked, 40 trucks, tankers burnt in Sindh

KARACHI: Gunmen in southern Pakistan on Friday torched more than two dozen trucks and tankers carrying supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, police said.

Attacks on trucks carrying goods for US and NATO-led forces are routine. But Friday's incident came a day after Pakistan blocked the convoys following the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers blamed on cross-border NATO fire.

"Around 20 attackers armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles attacked these trucks. They set ablaze 27 trucks parked there," district police chief Abdul Hameed Khoso told AFP of the pre-dawn attack.

The incident took place in Shikarpur district of the southern province of Sindh and was confirmed by another top administrative official.

Officials said the main land route for NATO supplies remained blocked and no trucks were being allowed to enter Afghanistan for the second consecutive day Friday.

"Trucks carrying fuel and other goods for NATO are still not allowed to enter Afghanistan," an administrative official at Torkham, the main border crossing in Pakistan's Khyber district, told AFP by telephone.

A security official in the northwestern city of Peshawar also confirmed that convoys were suspended for second day and that they had not received fresh orders to restore the supplies for NATO.

NATO said aircraft had entered Pakistani airspace Thursday in self-defence and killed "several armed individuals" after the crews believed they had been fired at from the ground.

It was the fourth such strike this week by NATO helicopters pursuing militants into Pakistani territory in actions that have been condemned by the government.

Khyber is on the main NATO supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where more than 152,000 US and NATO forces are fighting an intensifying Taliban insurgency.

The Pakistani government said it was investigating Thursday's incident in the Kurram district of the northwestern tribal belt, which Washington has branded an Al-Qaeda headquarters and hub of militants fighting in Afghanistan. AGENCIES

for details: 

Pakistan blocks supply trucks after three Pakistani soldiers killed in NATO Helicopter attack

Pakistan has blocked NATO supply trucks passing through its territory after atleast 3 Pakistani soldiers were killed when a NATO Helicopter targeted a security chekpost in Kurram Agency, near the Pak-Afghan border.
Pakistani government officials said senior authorities had ordered them to block oil tankers and trucks carrying Nato supplies at a checkpoint bordering Afghanistan. The two officials said they were not told the reason for the order at the Torkham border post, but it comes after threats by Pakistani officials to stop providing protection to Nato convoys if the military alliance’s helicopters hit Pakistani targets again.

A NATO helicopter attacked a Pakistani security post near the Afghan border on Thursday, killing three troops, officials in Pakistan said. NATO said it was investigating the allegations and whether they were linked to an operation against insurgents in a nearby Afghan province.
The incident was likely to fray ties between Pakistan and US-led forces in Afghanistan at a crucial time in the nine-year war. Just last weekend, NATO choppers opened fire on targets across the border, killing several alleged insurgents inside Pakistan.
Islamabad protested the incidents, which have further stirred already pervasive anti-American sentiments among Pakistanis.
Shortly after the allegations emerged, two government officials told The Associated Press they were ordered to stop NATO supply trucks from crossing into Afghanistan at the Torkham border post, a major passageway for NATO materials. Earlier this week, Pakistan threatened to stop providing protection to NATO convoys if the military alliance’s choppers attacked targets inside Pakistan again.
Pakistani officials differed on the exact location of the deadly airstrike, saying it took place either in Upper Kurram or Upper Orakzai. The remote, mountainous tribal regions neighbor one another, and the border is hard to distinguish.
The dead men were from a paramilitary force tasked with safeguarding the border, the Pakistani security officials said. Their bodies were taken to the region’s largest town of Parachinar, one official said. Three troops also were wounded.
The Pakistani officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation and because in some cases they were not authorized to release the information to the media.
Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for intelligence and special operations at NATO headquarters in Kabul, said coalition forces observed early Thursday what they believed were insurgents firing mortars at a coalition base in Dand Wa Patan district of Paktia province in eastern Afghanistan.
“A coalition air weapons team called for fire support and engaged the insurgents,” he said. “The air weapons team reported that it did not cross into Pakistani air space and believed the insurgents were located on the Afghan side of the border.”
Dorrian said NATO was reviewing the reports to see if the operation in Paktia was related to Pakistan’s reports its forces were hit by NATO aircraft.
In June 2008, a U.S. airstrike killed 11 Pakistani troops and frayed the two nations’ ties. Pakistan said the soldiers died when U.S. aircraft bombed their border post in the Mohmand tribal region. U.S. officials said their coalition’s aircraft dropped bombs during a clash with militants. They expressed regret over the incident, but said it was justified.
Pakistan and the U.S. have a complicated relationship, with distrust on both sides.
Polls show many Pakistanis regard the United States as an enemy, and conspiracy theories abound of U.S. troops wanting to attack Pakistan and take over its nuclear weapons. The Pakistani government has to balance its support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan with the support it needs from the population.
The U.S. and NATO need Pakistan’s cooperation in part because they use its land routes to transport supplies to their troops inside landlocked Afghanistan. The Pakistani government officials said about 250 vehicles of NATO supplies cross into Afghanistan daily.
There were more than 100 NATO vehicles blocked at the checkpoint by Thursday morning, they said.