CHAMAN, Pakistan, Jan 15, (Agencies): Gunmen attacked tankers carrying fuel for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan as they sat parked at a roadside restaurant in southwest Pakistan on Saturday, setting 16 of the vehicles ablaze, officials said.
The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility for the assault, which also left one driver wounded.
Islamist militants and criminals in Pakistan frequently attack trucks carrying supplies for US and NATO troops. The supplies typically arrive in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi and travel overland to neighboring Afghanistan.
The latest attack occurred in the Dera Murad Jamali area of Baluchistan province, said Fatteh Mohammed Khajjak, a local government official. The trucks were likely headed to the border crossing in the town of Chaman, the smaller of two such crossings into Afghanistan.
The home secretary of Baluchistan, Akbar Hussain Durani, said 136 NATO tankers were destroyed in 56 such attacks last year in the province. Some 34 people died and 23 were wounded in the attacks, he said.

It was not immediately possible to get similar data from the northwest province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where such attacks are believed to be more common. The Khyber tribal region, which is also in the northwest but not technically part of the province, is home to the larger border crossing.
Pakistani Taleban spokesman Azam Tariq said the militant group was behind the Saturday strike, which involved eight gunmen. Police have refused to speculate on who was behind the attack.
“We have assigned our fighters to go after the NATO supply tankers wherever in Pakistan,” Tariq told The Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location. “We want to make very, very difficult all land routes for NATO in Pakistan.”
The Pakistani Taleban are separate from, yet linked to, the Afghan Taleban. While both make common cause against the US, the Pakistani Taleban also are focused on attacking the Pakistani state.
American officials insist the attacks have had little to no impact on Western troops’ operations in Afghanistan, noting that up to 3,000 US and NATO supply trucks are on Pakistan’s roads on any given day. Nonetheless, the US-led coalition has begun relying more on other routes.

According to the US Embassy in Islamabad, up to 80 percent of non-lethal supplies traveled through Pakistani soil three years ago, but that number fell to 40 percent last year. Another 40 percent go through Central Asian routes and 20 percent travel by air.
“The attackers, riding in a car, opened fire on oil tankers parked at a petrol pump waiting for daybreak to resume their journey to Afghanistan,” Khajjak said.
Some 16 oil tankers caught fire, but two more parked a distance away were undamaged, he said. One of the fuel tanker staff was wounded by the gunfire.
The gunmen fled after the attack, Khajjak said. A security official also confirmed the attack.
In October, gunmen torched 29 oil tankers also bound for Afghanistan in the remote Mitri area, 180 kms (112 miles) southeast of Quetta.

Baluchistan, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan, is torn by Islamist militancy, sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and minority Shiite Muslims, and a separatist insurgency by rebels seeking political autonomy and a greater share of profits from natural resources.
Most supplies and equipment required by foreign troops in Afghanistan are shipped through Pakistan, although US troops increasingly use alternative routes through central Asia.
Pakistan shut its main northwestern border crossing to NATO supply vehicles on Sept 30 for 11 days after a cross-border NATO helicopter assault killed two Pakistani soldiers.
Scores of NATO supply vehicles were destroyed in gun and arson attacks while the border crossing was shut, with Taleban militants determined to disrupt the route and avenge US drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal belt.