Taliban attacks NATO supply trucks in Pakistan

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ISLAMABAD, Oct 4 (AP): The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility Monday for a pre-dawn attack on tankers carrying fuel to Afghanistan for US and other NATO forces, left vulnerable on the side of the road after Pakistan shut down a key border crossing.
About a dozen militants peppered the vehicles parked at a truck stop on the outskirts of the capital Islamabad with automatic gunfire. Some 20 trucks went up in flames and four people were killed and seven injured, authorities said.
It was the third such attack since Pakistan last Thursday shuttered its main border crossing into Afghanistan to NATO supply convoys in apparent reaction to a series of alleged NATO incursions, including a helicopter attack that killed three Pakistani soldiers. Traffic has since been backing up at various points along the route from the southern port city of Karachi to the crossing at Torkham - where scores of trucks remain stranded and vulnerable to attack in the volatile Khyber Pass.
Although Pakistan says the blockade will soon be lifted, the latest attack and the Taliban threat seemed certain to raise the stakes in the closure, which has exacerbated tensions between Washington and Islamabad.
"We are trying our best to protect the places where are vehicles have accumulated, and we are not dispatching any more trucks from Karachi for now," said Shakir Khan Afridi, president of the Khyber Transport Association, a major umbrella organization representing some 7,000 truckers.Islamabad lies about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from Torkham.
The Pakistani Taliban, which last week threatened more attacks on the supply lines, claimed responsibility in a telephone call to an Associated Press reporter.
Spokesman Azam Tariq said a new wing of the group had been created to strike the convoys and that the attacks "would continue until the supplies are completely stopped."
Trucks moving supplies from Karachi through Pakistan into Afghanistan make frequent stops along the way for their drivers to rest along the several-day journey, and Kalim Imam, police chief of the capital Islamabad, said it was impossible for police or local authorities to protect them all the time. "This entire thing is very vulnerable for such attacks," he said.