Militants kill three in convoy attack

Peshawar: Militants in Pakistan launched rockets at two trucks returning from delivering fuel to US-led forces in Afghanistan, killing three people along a critical and increasingly dangerous supply route, an official said yesterday.

The assailants struck the oil tankers on Friday as they travelled through the famed Khyber Pass, said Fazal Mahmoud, a government official in the lawless Pakistani tribal area for which the route is named.

The three Pakistanis killed in the attack included a passenger and both drivers, who were ferrying their vehicles back to Pakistan without the paramilitary escorts that often accompany the convoys on their way to Afghanistan, Mahmoud said. Up to 75 per cent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan goes through Pakistan. Al Qaida and Taliban militants have stepped up attacks on the Khyber supply line in an apparent bid to hamstring US and Nato forces.