(Reuters) – A bomb planted by the Taliban destroyed 22 NATO trucks carrying supplies to their forces in northern Afghanistan, the Taliban and police said on Wednesday.
Eighteen fuel trucks and four supply vehicles were parked in Aibak, the capital of Samangan province, when a bomb ripped through them, wounding one person, local police said.
“At 2 a.m. the mujahideen attacked the invader NATO trucks,” the Taliban said in a statement, referring to the wagons which had been driven from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan’s north.
The trucks were attacked in the same province where prominent anti-Taliban lawmaker Ahmad Khan Samangani was killed on Saturday at his daughter’s wedding, in a suicide bomb attack that killed 22 other guests.
“We believe the Taliban carried this out. Eighteen trucks have been totally destroyed, the rest were damaged by fire,” Samangan police chief Khalil Andarabi told Reuters.
Separately, police in neighboring Baghlan province said they had detained 10 suspected Taliban members with so-called magnetic bombs, which they were trying to attach to supply trucks.
Pakistan recently reopened its border crossings with Afghanistan for NATO supplies after shutting them in November after a U.S. airstrike unintentionally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
(Reporting by Bashir Ansari, writing by Mirwais Harooni, editing by Amie Ferris-Rotman)
