PESHAWAR, March 15: Suspected Taliban militants attacked a Nato supply terminal here on Sunday morning, burning about 20 trucks, containers and military vehicles.

Police said that heavily armed men lobbed petrol bombs and explosives at the terminal, setting trucks loaded with foodstuff and military vehicles on fire.

The fire brigade took hours to put the flames out.

According to an official, police exchanged fire with the attackers.

City SP Ijaz Abid told Dawn he believed it was the work of same elements who had previously attacked Nato supply convoys and terminals.

Attacks on Nato supplies had almost stopped after a series of attacks in December forced many contractors to shift terminals from Peshawar to Punjab.

More than 300 containers, trucks and Humvees were destroyed in the attacks.

Police registered an FIR against the owner of the terminal, Aman Gul, and unidentified attackers under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

An official said that Mr Gul, who belongs to Jamrud in the Khyber region, had been asked many times to shift the terminal to some other place.

AP adds: About 40 assailants struck the container terminal, police and witnesses said.

Mohammad Asif Khan, who worked with the driver of one of the trucks, said the armed men had scaled the wall of the compound and tied up the guards.

“I was hiding in a corner, and I saw them throw petrol bombs and fire rockets and shots” at the parked vehicles, he said.

An AP cameraman who visited the depot said the charred wrecks included several Humvees.

It was unclear if the torched supplies were destined for foreign troops in Afghanistan or for the western-backed Afghan army, which uses similar imported equipment.

Afghan-based US and Nato forces get up to 75 per cent of their supplies via routes through Pakistan.
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