Suspected militants blow up NATO oil tanker in Pakistan

Peshawar, Mar. 1 (ANI): A NATO oil tanker was blown up by a group of heavily armed militants on Monday on the outskirts of Pakistan's north-western city Peshawar, police said.

A tanker carrying fuel through Pakistan for NATO troops based in neighbouring Afghanistan was targeted by several armed men who lobbed a rocket and then opened fire on the supply convoy, The News quoted senior police officer Imtiaz Ahmed as saying.

"The attack triggered a huge fire and destroyed one tanker. Its driver escaped unhurt but his helper was wounded," he said.

In a subsequent exchange of fire lasting up to an hour, Pakistani security forces killed a militant, police officer Karim Khan said.

While police did not immediately identify the assailants, the Taliban and members of local militant group regularly attack NATO supply vehicles on the main route through northwest Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in Kandahar, a suicide car bomb attack targeting a NATO convoy killed at least four Afghan civilians on Monday, the Afghan interior ministry said.

The attacker drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a NATO convoy on the highway between the city of Kandahar and Spin Boldak, a district on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"It killed four of our innocent civilian compatriots and wounded one," the statement said. (ANI)