Police: Suspected militants launch rare attack against NATO supply trucks in southern Pakistan

Police: Militants attack NATO trucks in Pakistan

KARACHI, Pakistan — Militants staged a rare attack in southern Pakistan against trucks carrying supplies for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan on Thursday, wounding three people in the latest violence to plague the country’s largest city, police said.

The militants attacked the trucks with guns and grenades just after midnight as they traveled on a main highway on the outskirts of Karachi, police official Mohammed Ali said.

Pakistan’s financial hub has a long history of political and sectarian violence but has largely been spared attacks by Taliban fighters waging war against the Pakistani government and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

But there are concerns that the Taliban may be expanding their fight to target the city, a worry for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, which ships up to 75 percent of its supplies to the landlocked country through the port in Karachi.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a bombing against a Shiite Muslim procession in Karachi in December that killed more than 40 people, although the government later blamed the attack on Jundallah, a militant group based in the city.

Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban has expanded its ties with other militant groups in the country, a troubling development for the government, which is struggling to counter an insurgency that has killed more than 600 people in the past three months.

Taliban militants have carried out a wave of attacks against NATO supply trucks in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border, although less frequently in the past six months. Thursday’s attack in Karachi was one of only a few that have occurred in the city.

The security of supply lines into Afghanistan will become even more important as the U.S. and NATO deploy more than 30,000 additional troops to the country this year.

NATO said Wednesday it had finalized an agreement with Kazakhstan to open the last leg on an overland route to Afghanistan from Europe via Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, offering an alternative to the one through Pakistan.

Also in Pakistan on Thursday, a bomb attached to a bicycle exploded, killing three people and wounding a dozen others in an area of Baluchistan province where nationalist insurgents have been active, police said.

The blast occurred in Sohbatpur town, some 220 miles (360 kilometers) east of the provincial capital, Quetta, police official Syed Fareed Shah said.

Baluchistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by nationalist groups seeking more autonomy for the province and a greater share of the profits from its many natural resources.

Associated Press writer Abdul Sattar in Quetta contributed to this report.