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, said police.

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 over 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, but Thursday’s attack is believed to be only the second of its kind in Karachi.