Peshawar: Suspected Taliban militants
armed with guns and rockets on Monday blew up a tanker carrying
fuel through Pakistan for NATO troops based in neighbouring
Afghanistan, police said.
Several armed men lobbed a rocket and then opened fire
on the supply convoy on the outskirts of Pakistan`s
north-western city Peshawar, senior police officer Imtiaz Ahmed
said.
"The attack triggered a huge fire and destroyed one
tanker. Its driver escaped unhurt but his helper was wounded,"
he said.
In a subsequent exchange of fire lasting up to an
hour, Pakistani security forces killed a militant, another
police officer Karim Khan said.
Police did not immediately identify the assailants,
but the Taliban and members of local militant group
Lashkar-e-Islam regularly attack NATO supply vehicles on the
main route through northwest Pakistan.
Lashkar-e-Islam is active in the lawless region of
Khyber, which is just outside Peshawar and part of Pakistan`s
tribal belt snaking along the Afghan border that Washington
has branded the headquarters of Al-Qaeda leaders.
About 80 per cent of supplies destined for the
121,000 US and NATO troops in landlocked Afghanistan pass
through Pakistan.
PTI
