Gunmen torch 10 NATO oil tankers in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD - Suspected Taliban militants in northwestern Pakistan Saturday torched 10 lorries carrying oil supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, police said.

The attack took place in the Ring Road area of Peshawar, the capital of militancy-plagued Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

“An unknown number of gunmen stormed a workshop where more than a dozen tankers were parked. After overpowering the security guards they set fire to the vehicles. Ten were completely destroyed,” said Ijaz Khan, a senior police official.

It was the latest attack in the Taliban’s intensified campaign of strikes against NATO supply lines.

More than 170 supply vehicles have been torched since early October and six people, most of them drivers, have been killed.

According to official figures, 80 percent of NATO supplies are transported to land-locked Afghanistan via Pakistan.