Karachi: Militants staged a rare attack in southern Pakistan against trucks carrying supplies for Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan yesterday, wounding three people in the latest violence to plague the country's largest city, police said.
The militants attacked the trucks with guns and grenades just after midnight as they travelled on a main highway on the outskirts of Karachi, police official Mohammad Ali said.
Pakistan's financial hub has a long history of political and sectarian violence but has largely been spared attacks by Taliban fighters waging war against the Pakistani government and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
But there are concerns that the Taliban may be expanding their fight to target the city, a worry for the Nato coalition in Afghanistan, which ships up to 75 per cent of its supplies to the landlocked country through the port in Karachi.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a bombing against a Shiite Muslim procession in Karachi in December that killed more than 40 people, although the government later blamed the attack on Jundallah, a militant group based in the city.
Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban has expanded its ties with other militant groups in the country, a troubling development for the government, which is struggling to counter an insurgency that has killed more than 600 people in the past three months.
Taliban militants have carried out a wave of attacks against Nato supply trucks in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, although less frequently in the past six months. Yesterday's attack in Karachi was one of only a few that have occurred in the city.
The security of supply lines into Afghanistan will become even more important as the US and Nato deploy more than 30,000 additional troops to the country this year.
Nato said Wednesday it had finalised an agreement with Kazakhstan to open the last leg on an overland route to Afghanistan from Europe via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, offering an alternative to the one through Pakistan.
Also in Pakistan yesterday, a bomb attached to a bicycle exploded, killing three people and wounding a dozen others in an area of Balochistan province where nationalist insurgents have been active, police said.
Dangerous route
- 75% of Nato's supplies shipped from Karachi
- 600 people killed in the past three months
