Pakistan: Two Dead in 2nd Attack on NATO Convoy
Updated 10:59 a.m. ET
Police say assailants in Pakistan have torched a truck carrying supplies for NATO and American forces in Afghanistan.
The attack was the second Friday on vehicles traveling to Afghanistan with goods for the U.S.-led mission.
Police officer Mohammad Azam says a driver and his assistant were killed in the blaze in the southeastern province of Baluchistan.
In the earlier incident, at least 27 tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops were ambushed.
That attack took place on the edge of Shikarpur town in Sindh province early Friday, a day after Pakistan closed a major border crossing to protest a NATO incursion into its territory that killed three Pakistani soldiers. No one is believed to have been killed or wounded.
Police official Mir Ahmed Chandio says the tankers were parked at a terminal when gunmen opened fire, forcing people to flee before setting the vehicles on fire. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said the trucks were still alight several hours after the attack.
Shikarpur lies in southern central Pakistan, approximately 200 miles from the country's tumultuous western border with Afghanistan.
The incident will only deepen concerns over the security of the most crucial supply lines for U.S. and NATO troops fighting across the border in Afghanistan, reports CBS News' Farhan Bokhari.
The Pakistani government ordered security forces to block oil tankers and trucks carrying NATO supplies into Afghanistan at the crucial Torkham border crossing Thursday, officials told CBS News. An Afghan army official told CBS News' Fazul Rahim on Thursday that about 70 percent of U.S. and NATO military supplies reach Afghanistan via Pakistan.
Bokhari reports that, in addition to Torkham, an additional border crossing at Chaman, in southern Afghanistan, has been blocked to NATO truck traffic. Only a couple of the crossings along Pakistan and Afghanistan's shared mountainous border are passable in large trucks - Torkham and Chaman being the two most important.
Pakistani officials have said the helicopter attack was a violation of a "red line," which, according to the Pakistani government, forbids Western troops operating inside the country.
"We will not tolerate attacks on our troops," a senior security official told CBS on Friday. "As you can see, the level of anger is growing very rapidly. We have seen this attack on supply trucks just this morning."
"Pakistan is looking for its point of view to be recognized," a Western diplomat tells Bokhari. "We are all working to find a face-saving way out of this situation."
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the incidents.
On Friday, Pakistan's ambassador to Belgium was due to present a formal note of protest at NATO's Brussels headquarters on behalf of his government.
"Incursions and strikes of this nature are not only unacceptable but could oblige Pakistan to consider response options. Such incidents create serious misgivings and thus defeat the very basis of cooperation in pursuit of the common objective of combating terrorism," said Pakistan's Foreign Ministry the statement announcing the ambassador's pending visit to NATO headquarters.