ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities Saturday suspended supplies to the foreign
troops in neighboring Afghanistan hours after a blast at an NATO oil tanker
killed 16 persons.
According to a Chinese official news agency, Pakistan suspended supplies to
nearly 160,000 U.S.-led NATO troops after the incident, officials in the region
said.
Witnesses said that hundreds of NATO supplies trucks were stranded on the
main Pakistan-Afghan highway after the blockade, the report added.
Some 70 percent supplies for the NATO troops are transported through
Pakistan. Suspected militants attacked and torched NATO oil tankers in two
separate incidents late Friday night at Landikotal, a main town in Khyber region
and the borer point of Torkham.
When locals gathered around the tanker at Landikotal to acquire the leaked
oil, the tanker blew up due to gas pressure, killing 16 persons there.
Militants, fighting Pakistani forces, regularly target NATO supply trucks, also
forcing the U.S. to sign alternate supply routes with Russia. Online
