Asia

Home page

Asia

Pro-Taliban militants kill NATO driver in Northwest Pakistan

20 November 2012 19:00 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Heavily armed pro-Taliban militants have killed a driver of a NATO supply truck in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern region near the Afghan border, APA reports quoting Press TV.

The driver was killed after militants targeted a convey of NATO trucks in the northwestern Jamrud area of Khyber on Tuesday.

Pro-Taliban militants often claim responsibility for such attacks, saying that the assaults are in retaliation for non-UN-sanctioned US assassination drone strikes on Pakistan's tribal regions.

Militants have routinely attacked NATO containers in northwest and southwest Pakistan for the past several years.

The attacks have prompted US officials to seek alternative routes for the supplies bound for the foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Violence has been increasing in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt following the 2001 US-led invasion of neighboring Afghanistan.

A series of bombings as well as other attacks have claimed thousands of lives across Pakistan over the past few years.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan joined an alliance with the United States in the so-called war on terror.