Peshawar: Several armed militants again attacked a terminal in Peshawar on Monday and torched 50 trucks carrying supplies for Nato forces in Afghanistan, officials say. The first attack was carried out on Sunday which had resulted in the destroying of about 300 supply vehicles.
A police official said several militants armed with sophisticated weapons attacked the relatively protected Bilal terminal, threw petrol on the trucks and set them ablaze. No firing or any explosion was heard, he added.
A security guard of the terminal said he was present there but did not how the militants entered the terminal and done the damage.
On Sunday, at least 200 heavily armed militants in an unprecedented devastating attack torched about 300 Nato trucks loaded with arms, vehicles and other supplies.
According to police officials and eyewitnesses, the militants first fired rockets and then used hand grenades to destroy the trucks and the supplies on two terminals named Al-Faisal and Port World Logistic on the main Ring Road of the city. A security guard, identified as Suleman Khan, of the Al-Faisal terminal was also killed in the attack.
Eyewitnesses said the security forces and fire brigade personnel reached the area after the militants had set all the trolleys and containers on fire and fled.
A security guard of one of the terminals, Muhammad Rafiq, said that the attackers were more than 200 and besides heavily armed they were also carrying cans of petrol.
‘First, they disarmed us and then started firing rockets and throwing grenades on trucks. We were unable to face such a large number of armed men,’ he added.
The Al-Faisal terminal was also attacked on Dec. 1 in which 22 loaded trucks, including two Humvees, were destroyed. Supplies for Nato forces are kept at terminals before their onward transportation to Afghanistan via the Torkham highway.
Meanwhile, the Jamaat-e-Islami, a political-religious party led by Qazi Hussain Ahmad, threatened to forcibly stop supplies to Nato forces during an anti-US rally on Dec. 18.
According to a press release issued by the Jammat, its deputy amir (leader) of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) chapter, Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, told a workers’ convention in Karak district that the rally would be led by party chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad and will block Nato supplies.
‘By allowing the supplies through NWFP the federal and provincial governments had in fact challenged the honour of the Pakistani people,’ he added, said the press release.
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