NATO fuel trucks destroyed in Pakistan attack: police

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Militants destroyed more than 20 trucks in a rocket attack on Thursday on a NATO trucking terminal in southwest Pakistan supplying troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, police said.

A number of oil tankers and goods trucks were parked in the temporary terminal in Quetta after Pakistan shut down supply lines for NATO forces in anger at a deadly cross-border air strike which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Senior police official Malik Arshad said gunmen fired bullets and a rocket at the NATO oil tankers and the ensuing blaze engulfed more than 20 vehicles in Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

"Flames were rising from more than 20 vehicles. We do not know about any casualties yet because the blaze is still so huge," Arshad said, adding that 10 vehicles were safely evacuated from the terminal.

"First the fire started in two oil tankers and the fuel started leaking which spread the fire to other vehicles," Arshad said.

"Fire brigade and emergency services were called in immediately after the attack," he said.

Baluchistan home secretary Naseebullah Bazai told reporters at the blaze site there were 38 vehicles parked in the terminal, one of three set up in and around Quetta for the stranded NATO oil tankers and trucks.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack but the Taliban have in the past said they carried out similar attacks to disrupt supplies for the more than 130,000 US-led international troops fighting in Afghanistan.

Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants frequently launch attacks on NATO supply vehicles in the northwest and southwest regions of Pakistan, which border landlocked Afghanistan.

Most supplies and equipment required by foreign forces in Afghanistan are usually shipped through Pakistan, although US troops increasingly use alternative routes through Central Asia.