Pakistan’s blockade of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) vehicles ferrying supplies for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan continued for the fifth day on Monday with Islamabad insisting that the border post at Torkham can be opened for these vehicles only when public ire over violation of Pakistani airspace by coalition forces ebbs.
Meanwhile, NATO vehicles came under attack on the outskirts of the federal capital. In a pre-dawn attack, unknown assailants fired upon NATO vehicles at a depot before setting them afire; killing three people. Over a score tankers carrying fuel for ISAF were destroyed in the inferno and the Pakistani Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Since Sunday, Foreign Office has been citing public ire as reason for closing the Torkham border post to NATO vehicles. This was reiterated by Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi at Brussels today during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
On Sunday, a two-member team headed by a senior official of the Frontier Corps – which lost three of its men in an ISAF bombing on a Pakistani border post last Thursday – travelled to Afghanistan for a joint probe into the aerial attack.
