Monday, August 6, 2012

Gunmen kill NATO driver in Pakistan

Gunmen on Monday killed a driver of a
NATO supply truck in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on the Afghan border, according to officials. It was the second fatal shooting in two weeks in the Jamrud area in Khyber district, where Taliban and local Islamist militia are active. After the first shooting on July 24, Pakistan closed the Torkham border crossing, the quickest route from Pakistan's port of Karachi to the Afghan capital, for nine days. "Three gunmen in a jeep fired at a NATO truck, killing its driver," local government official Bakhtiar Khan told AFP. NATO traffic was suspended for a few hours 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 botched US air raids killed 24 Pakistani troops in November.

No comments: