Bomb blast destroys five NATO oil tankers in Torkham

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, yet.

PESHAWAR: At least five NATO oil tankers bound for Afghanistan caught fire on Friday after a bomb planted beneath one of them exploded, but there were no casualties, intelligence officials in Pakistan said.

"A remote-controlled device planted under one of the tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan went off, triggering a fire that engulfed four more tankers," local administration official Iqbal Khan Khattak said.

The tankers were parked in the Torkham area of the troubled Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border. He said that there were a total of 21 tankers parked in the terminal, but the other vehicles were safe after being moved away from the blast site.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast but the Taliban has said it carried out such attacks in the past.

The bombing follows twin suicide blasts on Friday that killed 80 people at a paramilitary police training centre in Shabqadar in northwest Pakistan, in what the Pakistani Taliban said was revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Most supplies and equipment required by foreign troops in Afghanistan are shipped through Pakistan.

Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants frequently launched attacks across northwestern Pakistan and the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, which Washington has branded the most dangerous place in the world.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2011.