Militants in Pakistan launched rockets at two trucks returning from delivering fuel to US-led forces in Afghanistan, killing three people along a critical and increasingly dangerous supply route, an official said Saturday. The assailants struck the oil tankers Friday as they traveled through the famed Khyber Pass, said Fazal Mehmood, a government official in the lawless Pakistani tribal area for which the route is named. The three Pakistanis killed in the attack included a passenger and both drivers, who were ferrying their vehicles back to Pakistan without the paramilitary escorts that often accompany the convoys on their way to Afghanistan, Mehmood said. Up to 75 percent of the supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan goes through Pakistan. Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants have stepped up attacks on the Khyber supply line in an apparent bid to hamstring US and NATO forces, which toppled the hard-line Taleban regime in Afghanistan in 2001 but have been battling a resurgence by the group. Hundreds of vehicles have been torched in recent weeks in terminals on the Pakistani side of the border, leaving several security guards dead. The convoys are often attacked in Afghanistan as well, despite armed escorts. The attacks have led NATO to scout alternatives for the Pakistan supply route. The US has also responded to increasing militant activity in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal areas with occasional missile strikes that have triggered hostility from local residents. On Thursday, more than 10,000 protesters in the northwestern city of Peshawar demanded Pakistan prevent Western use of the supply route to Afghanistan, saying the equipment transported was being used for attacks on Pakistani soil.
