PESHAWAR: Gunmen on Monday killed a truck driver in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt over suspicions that he was transporting supplies for Nato troops in Afghanistan, officials said.

The shooting took place in Jamrud area of Khyber district, where Taliban and local militants are active.

Officials first reported the incident as an attack on a Nato supply truck but later confirmed the truck was carrying “commercial goods for Afghanistan”.

Pakistan had closed the Torkham border crossing, the quickest route from Pakistan’s port of Karachi to the Afghan capital, for nine days after gunmen killed a Nato supply truck driver on July 24.

Local government official Bakhtiar Khan told AFP that three gunmen in a jeep fired on the truck, killing its driver.

Nato traffic was very briefly suspended after the incident.

Sameen Jan, a doctor at the local hospital, said the driver was shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest.

Pakistan reopened the Torkham crossing on Saturday, having signed a deal with the United States last Tuesday allowing Nato convoys to travel into Afghanistan until the end of 2015.

Islamabad in July lifted a seven-month blockade on Nato goods passing overland through Pakistan, imposed after US air raids killed 24 Pakistani troops in November.