Nato trucks attacked in Pakistan, driver killed

Taliban militants in northwest Pakistan attacked two Nato supply trucks early yesterday, killing a driver and wounding two other people, officials said.

Half a dozen militants armed with assault rifles launched the attack in Landikotal, a town in Pakistan’s tribal district of Khyber on the border with Afghanistan, the officials said.

Pakistani officials this month reported US drone strikes in Khyber, an apparent expansion of the covert drone programme previously confined to targeted Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders elsewhere in the tribal belt.

“The militants started firing from the hilltop. A driver of one truck was killed on the spot, while his helper and another driver of another truck were injured,” local administrative official Iqbal Khatak said.

Intelligence officials said the militants fled after the attack, and confirmed that the trucks were carrying goods for Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan shut its main northwestern border crossing to Nato supply vehicles on September 30 for 11 days after a cross-border Nato helicopter assault killed two Pakistani soldiers.