Dozens of masked gunmen blocked a mountain pass and hijacked a convoy of trucks carrying military vehicles and other supplies bound for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday.
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Attacks are common against supply trucks that use the Khyber Pass in Pakistan's northwest to ferry supplies to U.S. and NATO troops across the border, but Monday's raid was particularly brazen.
Some 60 masked gunmen blocked the route at several points and assaulted the convoy, said Fazal Mahmood, an administration official for the Khyber tribal region.
Pakistani security forces traded fire with the gunmen but were forced to retreat. The militants took the trucks along with the drivers.
Mahmood blamed Pakistani militants from the Taliban movement for the attack.
'We are using all resources to trace and recover the hijacked trucks, some of which were carrying vehicles for the allied forces in Afghanistan,' Mahmood said.
Helicopter gunships were dispatched to assist in the search in the rugged region, where Pakistan's central government has little control and militants have found hideouts.
Yeah, we're not finding them. Not intact, anyways.
UPDATE
We found them:
TALIBAN militants were driving around in captured US army Humvee armoured vehicles in Pakistan's tribal region close to the historic Khyber Pass last night after hijacking more than a dozen supply trucks travelling along the vital land route that supplies coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The capture of the Humvees - these days the symbol of US intervention in Iraq and elsewhere - is a serious embarrassment to US commanders of the coalition forces.
Pakistani reporters in the area said the militants unloaded the Humvees from shipping containers on the backs of the trucks and drove off in them, after decorating them with flags and banners of the banned umbrella organisation Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is led by Baitullah Mehsud. Mehsud is closely allied to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The reporters said the hijackings had taken place 'in clear view of (Pakistani) paramilitary personnel' deployed at the nearby Jamrud Fort, who 'did not take any action'.
'All this happened on the international highway (linking Pakistan with Afghanistan) and you can imagine the implications this can have for us,' an official told Pakistan newspaper Dawn.
By: Brant
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