Afghanistan-bound lorries torched

07/12/2008| IslamWeb

A policeman was killed and scores of lorries set on fire in an attack on a Pakistani supply terminal used by Nato and US forces in Afghanistan.

 

Kashaf Alam, a police official, said around 30 suspected Taliban fighters attacked the terminal with rockets and guns early on Sunday near Peshawar city in the country's northwest.

 

Fire engulfed at least 62 lorries and shipping containers, the AP news agency quoted Alam as saying.

 

Azeem Khan, another police official, meanwhile told Reuters news agency that 96 lorries, carrying Humvees and other military vehicles for Western forces, had been burned.

 

The Taliban has carried out a series of similar attacks in recent weeks, aimed at disrupting the vital supply route for US and Nato troops into Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass.

 

Supply lorries carry 75 per cent of the food and fuel for the foreign troops in Afghanistan.

 

A Taliban spokesman told Al Jazeera two weeks ago that such attacks would continue "until the [Afghan] government and the Americans are smashed".

 

"We want to show them they are not all-powerful and the mujahadin of Afghanistan can carry out attacks on our enemies in any part of the country," Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesman, said.

 

Coalition forces have reportedly discussed opening new supply routes into the country through Russia, and even Iran.

 

PHOTO CAPTION

 

Pakistani workers cover a military vehicle loaded on a truck destined for NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan.

 

Al-Jazeera