Peshawar: Gunmen in Pakistan attacked trucks bound for Nato in Afghanistan on Tuesday, killing a driver, officials said, in the first such incident since supply lines reopened after a seven-month blockade.
Islamabad agreed three weeks ago to allow convoys supplying coalition troops in its war-torn neighbour to pass through its territory once again after halting them in November after a botched US air raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but Pakistani Taliban have threatened to attack Nato trucks and kill their drivers, and right-wing and extremist religious groups have held demonstrations against the resumption of convoys.
The trucks were attacked near the market in Jamrud town on the outskirts of Peshawar, the main city in the troubled northwest, local administration official Bakhtiar Khan said.
“Two armed men riding on a motorbike opened fire on a container carrying supplies for Nato troops across the border and killed its driver,” Khan said, adding that the driver’s helper was seriously wounded.
Another administration official said the truck was part of a convoy of three or four vehicles travelling without security protection when they came under attack.
A hospital official in Jamrud confirmed the casualties.
“The driver was shifted to our hospital in serious condition, he died later,” doctor Azam Khan of the state-run Jamrud hospital said.
He received one bullet in the head and two in the chest, he added.
Pakistan on July 3 decided to reopen overland routes to Nato convoys after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said sorry for the air strike deaths last November.
Breakdown in trust
The crisis was the worst episode in Pakistan’s decade-long partnership with Washington in the war in Afghanistan, with both sides still struggling to overcome a breakdown in trust.
So far relatively few Nato trucks have actually trickled across the border, with owners awaiting a deal on compensation for seven months’ missed work and security guarantees in the southern port city of Karachi.
Bakhtiar Khan said security agencies were interrogating five people held after the shooting, and security for the trucks was to be beefed up.
“We have advised the drivers to move in large convoys. We are also telling the customs department to discourage sending one or two trucks instead,” he said.
The convoy attack came a day after a US drone attack on a compound in the northwest killed at least ten militants, according to officials — the first drone strike during Ramadan.
There has been a dramatic increase in US drone strikes in Pakistan since May when a Nato summit in Chicago could not strike a deal to end the blockade on Nato supplies travelling to Afghanistan.
Washington considers Pakistan’s semi-autonomous northwestern tribal belt the main hub of Taliban and Al Qaida militants plotting attacks on the West and in Afghanistan.
