Landikotal: At least 16 people were killed in Pakistan on Saturday after a bomb hit a truck carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan, the latest attack in an upsurge of violence since Osama bin Laden was killed.
The attack, claimed by a militant group, took place near the Torkham border crossing in the Khyber region, the main route for moving supplies to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan.
"The tanker was on fire because of a blast late in the night," a senior local administration official in Khyber told Reuters.
"There was another blast early in the morning in the same tanker and 16 people who gathered near it to collect oil were killed," the official added.
Police officials said the first blast was caused by a bomb.
In another attack in the region, a bomb struck 16 NATO fuel trucks late on Friday, setting them on fire. No one was hurt.
Militants have stepped up attacks in Pakistan, an unstable U.S. ally, since U.S. special forces killed al Qaeda leader bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad this month.
Abdullah Azzam Brigade, a militant group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for both attacks on the NATO trucks.
"It is our jihad against Americans. We want to stop supplies for NATO from our territory," Abu Musa'ab, a spokesman for the group, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The attacks on the NATO trucks in Khyber came hours after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a U.S. consulate convoy in the city of Peshawar.
One Pakistani was killed and 12 people were injured, including two U.S. nationals who suffered light wounds.
Separately, up to 6,000 people gathered in the country's biggest city of Karachi, protesting against U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan.
The sit-in protest, near the country's main port, was organised by cricket-turn-politician Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf party. It was expected to last until Sunday.
Khan, who last month held a similar protest in Peshawar, has called for the blocking of NATO's supply line in protest against drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal regions where al Qaeda and Taliban militants are based.
Routes through Pakistan bring in 40 percent of supplies for NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to the United States Transportation Command.
Of the remainder, 40 percent come through Afghanistan's neighbours in the north and 20 percent by air.
The Pakistani Taliban are pressing ahead with their campaign of suicide bombings designed to de-stabilise the unpopular government, despite several army offensives against their strongholds along the lawless border region with Afghanistan.
Eight suspected militants were killed on Saturday when army gunship helicopters attacked their hideouts in Orakzai region, adjoining Khyber, local officials said.
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