More NATO trucks torched in Pakistan

Press TV, Sat Nov 13, 2010, 3:37PM

Militants in Pakistan have set fire to at least three NATO trucks carrying supplies to the US-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

The trucks were torched by gunmen in the southwestern province of Balochistan, a Press TV correspondent reported on Saturday.

The vehicles were burned down near Chaman close to the border with Afghanistan.

The assailants managed to flee the scene.

Chaman is an important crossing-point into Afghanistan, and has been used by NATO forces as a supply route.

On August 30, 2009, an attack on a NATO convoy destroyed 20 fuel tankers and other supply trucks in the volatile region.

Pro-Taliban militants have destroyed hundreds of NATO vehicles in northwest and southwest Pakistan over the past years.

There has been a surge in attacks on NATO supply lines in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, militants in Pakistan have warned they will continue attacks on NATO supply trucks as long as the US continues its non-UN-sanctioned drone strikes on tribal areas.

JR/HGH/MMN

US drone strike 'kills four militants in Pakistan'

AFP, Saturday, November 13, 2010

A US drone strike in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on Saturday killed four militants, destroying their compound and a vehicle, local security officials said.

Two missiles fired by a US drone hit Ahmad Khel village, some 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the North Waziristan region, local security officials said.

"It was a US drone attack, one missile hit a house and another hit a vehicle. We have reports that four militants were killed," an intelligence official in Miranshah told AFP.

A second intelligence official in the town confirmed the attack and the death toll, while a security official in Peshawar said two drones fired four missiles, hitting a vehicle and killing three militants.

The area is considered a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked fighters and has seen a dramatic rise in US drone strikes, as intelligence claims emerged last month of a Mumbai-style terror plot to launch commando attacks on European cities.

The leadership of the Haqqani network, which is linked to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, is also based in North Waziristan.

It has been accused of plotting some of the deadliest attacks on US troops in Afghanistan including a suicide bombing that killed seven CIA operatives at a US base in Khost last December.

Officials in Miranshah and Peshawar said they are trying to find out the identities of those killed and whether there was a so-called 'high value' target among the dead.

A covert US drone campaign in Pakistan has stepped up strikes in the tribal belt.

More than 220 people have been killed in over 40 strikes since September 3, heightening tensions with Islamabad over reported US criticism of Pakistan's failure so far to launch a ground offensive in North Waziristan.

The United States does not as a rule confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the pilotless aircraft in the region.

But the policy is unpopular among the Pakistan public who see military action on Pakistani soil as a breach of national sovereignty.

It has led to reprisals from militant groups who have targeted NATO supply convoys destined for Afghanistan.