Khyber Agency: Two drivers killed in attack on NATO supply trucks

Suspected militants also seize two helpers of the drivers before injuring them.

JAMRUD:

Two drivers were killed and their helpers abducted when suspected militants attacked three container trucks carrying Nato supplies en route to Afghanistan in the Khyber tribal region on Monday.

“The container trucks were on their way to Afghanistan when gunmen opened fire at them in the Wazir Dhand area of Jamrud tehsil, killing two drivers and wounding their helpers,” political administration official Ali Sher Khan told The Express Tribune.

It wasn’t clear how many militants carried out the attack – but some officials put their number at nearly two dozen. They set fire to the container trucks laden with supplies for US-led foreign forces fighting a bloody insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan. They fled the scene unchallenged and unidentified.

Witnesses said that the militants opened fire on the trucks from three sides near the Wazir Dhand checkpoint of Khasadar force. “I was sitting in a roadside shop when masked militants appeared on motorcycles and attacked the trucks,” Ismail Khan, a local tribesman, told The Express Tribune.

Two drivers were killed and their helpers wounded in the attack, he added. “The attackers dragged the injured helpers out of the vehicles and kidnapped them.” The dead drivers were identified as Tariq Khan, a resident of Hangu, and Rahman Ali, a resident of Charsadda. Their helpers, however, could not be immediately identified.

The Khasadar personnel manning the Wazir Dhand checkpost did not dare to challenge the attackers who doused the vehicles in petrol and set them on fire before fleeing the scene, according to the witness.

However, Roshan Khan Mehsud, the assistant political agent of Jamrud, claimed that the Khasadar personnel did challenge the attackers and forced them to flee.  He added that a search operation has been launched in the area.

He added that they shifted the bodies to the Hayatabad Medical Complex and called fire tenders from Peshawar to put out the blaze.

Another eyewitness, who owns a shop in the area, criticized the local political administration saying that the Khasadar personnel failed to thwart the attack. “They couldn’t put out the fire on the vehicles on time which also affected the shops in the neighbourhood,” he added.

No group immediately claimed responsibility but the Taliban have in the past carried out such attacks. Trucks travelling through Pakistan to supply US-led forces have frequently been attacked during Nato’s 13-year intervention in Afghanistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2014.