Supplies to NATO forces suspended after attacks in Pakistan

Supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan were suspended on Tuesday a day after nearly 10 NATO oil tankers were attacked and torched, local media reported. Nine tankers, carrying oil for NATO troops in Afghanistan, were attacked in Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border. Four oil tankers, a container and a taxicab were completely gutted when a powerful bomb blast caused a huge fire in one of the vehicles near Landi Kotal Bazaar in Khyber Agency on Monday evening. No one was hurt as the drivers were breaking fast at a nearby hotel. It was the second attack on NATO lorries in the northwest in three days. Earlier more than a dozen NATO tankers had caught fire following a blast in a container terminal in Peshawar on Saturday. Also gunmen opened fire on NATO tankers in Punjab province late Monday night, police said. Gunmen opened fire on the tanker at Muzzafar Garh as they were passing through a square, they said. No one was hurt. Attacks on NATO trucks in Punjab are rare. Geo television said that supplies for NATO troops were temporarily suspended over security concerns. No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Taliban suspects routinely claim responsibility for such attacks. Some 70 percent of the supplies for around 150,000 U.S.-led NATO troops is transported through Pakistan, the shortest supply route. The United States has struck deal with Russia and few central Asian states for alternate supply routes.