PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Militants in north Pakistan blew up a tanker carrying lubricator for NATO forces in Afghanistan on Saturday, and a alternative discharge killed 15 grouping as a assemble gathered to try to draw soured whatever of its fuel. Another onslaught dilapidated 14 NATO tankers in a nearby abut town, but no digit was hurt.
A Asiatic Taleban assemble claimed domain for both attacks, underscoring the threat to vehicles that circularize non-lethal supplies for Western personnel in Afghanistan finished Pakistan — a threat that could grow more acute in the consequence of the U.S. ending of Osama containerful Laden in north Pakistan.
The explosions coincided with the publication of leaked U.S. diplomatic cables indicating that U.S. Special Forces provided intelligence and another resource to the Asiatic army as it fought Taleban forces in 2009. It was the stylish grounds that the U.S. personnel did more than meet condition Pakistanis, as was publically claimed.
The explosions occurred overnight in Pakistan's Khyber tribal region, an Atlantic that numerous trucks carrying supplies for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan must traverse, topical chief Abdul Nabi Khan said.
In the Landi Kotal Atlantic of Khyber, a tanker caught wind after a bomb blast. Once it seemed the blaze was controlled, grouping proven to take the tanker's fuel. Another wind then occurred, ending 15 grouping and wounding one, Khan said.
The 14 tankers dilapidated in the another onslaught were parked at Torkham, a town along the Pakistan-Afghan border. Torkham has witnessed whatever attacks on the U.S.-NATO cater line.
A Negro who claimed to be a spokesman for the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, a Taleban group, called journalists in the north municipality of metropolis to feature the assemble was behind the attacks. The goal was to kibosh the U.S. from actuation more arm strikes in Pakistan's northwest, said the man, who declined to provide his study in distinction with his group's policy.
U.S. and NATO commanders implore the attacks in Pakistan barely affect their operations. But in past years, the expeditionary units hit proven to reduce their dependency on Pakistan routes, progressively using anchorage streaming finished Central continent countries and relying on supplies to be flown in.
U.S.-Pakistani relations are at a baritone point over the direct May 2 dweller assail that killed containerful Laden in the north Asiatic garrison municipality of Abbottabad. Pakistan is provoked that it was not told in advance of the assail and says it did not know the al-Qaida chief was hiding in the area.
In the consequence of the raid, Pakistan's parliament has demanded that the U.S. kibosh its arm strikes, and warned that the government may cut soured the cater route altogether if the strikes don't end. On Sat in Karachi, around 5,000 Pakistanis led by former cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan protested the arm strikes.
But there hit been multiple arm strikes since the containerful Laden slaying, a sign that the U.S. is loath to abandon what it considers a highly trenchant weapon against insurgents that conceal in Pakistan and threaten Western personnel in Afghanistan.
Pakistani leaders' positions on the arm strikes and another U.S. status in the location are murky, with growing grounds that officials objurgate whatever such "violations of sovereignty" in open patch privately backing them.
The new published U.S. diplomatic cables appear to hold that.
The cables were obtained finished the Wikileaks methodicalness and published by Dawn, a reputable English-language production in Pakistan. Several of the cables were written by Anne Patterson, then the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan.
The cables inform that U.S. personnel connected Asiatic forces for the purposes of intelligence, intelligence hold and surveillance during 2009, a assemblage when Pakistan was involved in multiple offensives in its northwest, pockets of which were under the curb of various Taleban factions.
This year, officials hit said the U.S. presence in Pakistan has been scaled back, and joint dealings suspended. Some of the chill is related to the containerful Laden raid, but whatever of it dates to January, when an dweller CIA fasciculus effort departed digit Pakistanis he said were disagreeable to rob him. The incident furious the Asiatic army, but the dweller was free after his victims' relatives acknowledged compensation.
The U.S. cables referred to whatever of the sites where the cooperation occurred as "fusion centers." In Apr 2009, for instance, there was U.S. status in intelligence gathering for the Asiatic expeditionary activeness in Lower Dir, which preceded a field opprobrious in the Swat Valley.
The U.S. appeared stabbing on increasing its status to allow resource on the connector in battle zones.
The cables included manifest references to at least digit housing in which U.S. personnel did provide resource in a conflict zone, that of the Asiatic activeness in Bajur tribal location in fall 2009.
That happening has previously been referenced in media reports about early cables free finished Wikileaks. Those reports also described small U.S. crowd deployments in South Waziristan and North Waziristan, where the Americans offered intelligence, surveillance and another assistance, including coordinating U.S. arm strikes.
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Associated Press Writer Nahal Toosi in Islamabad and Mohammad Farooq in metropolis contributed to this report.
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