Brazen attack: 16 NATO supply vehicles torched

Nato tankers carrying supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan were torched in Dera Murad Jamali.

QUETTA:

Gunmen set ablaze 16 oil tankers, carrying fuel for Nato forces stationed in Afghanistan, in a pre-dawn attack in Naseerabad district, some 400 kilometres southeast of Quetta on Saturday.

Abdul Fatah Khajjak, the deputy commissioner of Naseerabad district, said that 16 Nato oil tankers and two containers mounted on trailers were parked at a roadside hotel near Dera Murad Jamali when armed men mounted the attack.

“Armed men came to the site in a car at 2.45 am. They fired gunshots into the air to scare away people before firing at the oil tankers,” Khajjak told The Express Tribune quoting witnesses.

The gunshots triggered a fire in more than one tanker which quickly engulfed all the vehicles, he added.

Fire tenders rushed to the site from Dera Murad Jamali. But it took them several hours to extinguish the fire. “Fourteen oil tankers were completely gutted and two were partially damaged,” Khajjak said.

The vehicles were travelling from Karachi to Chaman, a town on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Officials said that four security guards were escorting the convoy of Nato vehicles, but they fled the scene as soon as the gunmen mounted the attack.

“The security guards, belonging to a private company, first fired a few gunshots into the air. But they could not withstand the intense firing from attackers and fled the scene,” Khajjak said. However, he added that in a brave attempt levies forces secured two oil tankers.

Traffic on the National Highway between Quetta and Jacobabad remained suspended for several hours due to fire and thick smoke that enveloped the area.

Khajjak said that the attackers fled towards the Dera Allahyar area where levies personnel mounted a manhunt. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.

In October last year, gunmen  torched 29 Nato oil tankers in the Mitihari area near Sibi, 180 kilometres southeast of Quetta. And after a few days, another 40 tankers had been destroyed in another major attack on the outskirts of Quetta.

The Balochistan government has prepared a comprehensive plan to provide security to the oil tankers and containers carrying supplies for coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan. Nato officials are now discussing the plan and they have assured that they will soon get back to Pakistani authorities on this, provincial Home Secretary Akbar Hussain Durrani told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16th,  2011.