Three people were killed when about 20 Nato oil tankers were set ablaze by attackers armed with Molotov cocktails near Islamabad, which the Taliban said was to avenge US drone attacks and halt the supply route through Pakistan.
Separately a blockade by Pakistan of Nato’s main supply route to Afghanistan continued for a fifth day, prompting Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen to urge Pakistan to reopen the vital route “as soon as possible”.
Dozen attackers
Television pictures showing the pre-dawn arson attack showed towers of flame springing from the trucks, which were filling up just outside Islamabad en route to Afghanistan. Police said around a dozen attackers fled the scene.
In a similar incident on Friday in the south, heavily armed gunmen set ablaze more than two dozen trucks and tankers carrying fuel for the 1,52,000-strong foreign forces fighting the Taliban-led insurgency.
On Monday, another two Nato trucks bound for the second main supply route in Pakistan's southwest were torched by unknown assailants 80 kilometres from the Chaman crossing, in the Qalat district of Baluchistan province.
“The attackers were riding a motorcycle and set the trucks on fire. One person was critically injured,” Mohammad Ramazan, an Baluchistan tribal police official said.
More to come
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the first two attacks. “We accept responsibility for the attacks on the NATO supply trucks and tankers,” Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq said. “I am talking about attacks both in Sindh and in Islamabad,” he said in a call from an undisclosed location.
“We will carry out more such attacks in future. We will not allow the use of Pakistani soil as a supply route for Nato troops based in Afghanistan. This is also to avenge drone attacks.”
The United States has massively increased its drone campaign in Pakistan’s lawless northwest tribal region on the Afghan border, which it calls the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda and is a hub of militants fighting in Afghanistan.