Militants burn 20 allied oil tankers in Pakistan

Combined news reports

ISLAMABAD - Suspected militants attacked and set fire to at least 20 tankers carrying oil for NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan today, the third such strike inside Pakistan in as many days, police said.

Police officer Umer Hayat said three people were killed and blamed the attack on "terrorists." The attack, not far from Islamabad, took place on a supply line that has been stalled because of a temporary border closing.

Protecting NATO supply routes has re-emerged as a central issue in recent days because of such attempts to sabotage the convoy network, which runs from Karachi, Pakistan, into Afghanistan.

The latest supply-route attack came as top Afghan security officials urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to establish a military-run trucking system to take control of critical NATO supply routes now protected by a ragtag network of unsavory private security firms that is set to be disbanded by year's end.

With the Karzai-imposed deadline looming to close the private convoy-protection companies, Afghan officials told McClatchy Newspapers yesterday that they want to create a state-run military brigade equipped with its own trucks and thousands of soldiers to carry essential NATO supplies around the country.

In Monday's attack near Islamabad, the trucks were en route or waiting to travel to the Torkham border crossing along the Khyber Pass, which is used to take nonlethal supplies to foreign troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan's other main route into Afghanistan has remained open.

While NATO and the United States have alternative supply routes into Afghanistan, the Pakistani ones are the cheapest and most convenient. The convoy attacks have put more strain on the U.S.-led military coalition, which has tried to reduce its reliance on the Pakistan supply route. About half of the military supplies to the coalition in Afghanistan run through Pakistan.

Yesterday, Afghan officials announced that they have begun dismantling eight private security companies operating in Afghanistan, including the American contractor formerly known as Blackwater.