By Ibrahim Shinwari LANDIKOTAL, Pakistan, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces aim to recapture trucks hijacked by militants as they were taking supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass, a government official said on Tuesday. Most supplies, including fuel, for U.S. and other Western forces battling a Taliban insurgency in landlocked Afghanistan are trucked through neighbouring Pakistan, which is also facing growing militant violence. Pakistani Taliban militants hijacked 13 trucks without firing a shot as they passed through the Khyber Pass on Monday. The gunmen later posed for photographs in front of two Humvee military vehicles and some of the trucks. Fida Mohammad Bangash, a senior government administrator in the Khyber region, said security forces had blocked the main road from the northwestern city of Peshawar through the pass to the border at Torkham in preparation for a recovery operation. "We're planning a raid .... We have to recover the Humvees or at least destroy them," Bangash told Reuters. Officials said the trucks were carrying two Humvees and wheat but no weapons or ammunition. The militants released three of the trucks and their drivers after unloading the wheat, Bangash said. The Khyber region has long been notorious for smuggling and lawlessness, but until recently it was relatively free of Islamist militants. But security has deteriorated this year and soldiers carried out a sweep in part of the Khyber region in June to push militants back from the outskirts of Peshawar. Officials said the militants who seized the trucks were loyal to notorious Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who is based in the Waziristan region to the southwest of Khyber. The militants posed for photographs with a banner over one of the Humvees proclaiming their membership of Mehsud's group. "SECURITY IGNORED" Transport operators say the government has ignored security along the road. About two dozen trucks and oil-tankers have been attacked in the past month. Torkham, at the top of the Khyber Pass, is one of only two main crossing points on the Afghan-Pakistani border. The other is at the town of Chaman, to the southwest, from where a road runs to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Many goods for Western forces in Afghanistan are shipped into the Pakistani port of Karachi and trucked through one of the two crossing points. NATO and Russia signed a land transit agreement in April allowing the alliance to use Russian land to deliver non-lethal supplies to troops in Afghanistan but it was not immediately clear what volume of NATO supplies was coming that way. This year, four U.S. helicopter engines worth more than $13 million were stolen in northwest Pakistan while being trucked from Afghanistan to Karachi port to be shipped home. Pakistani forces have been fighting militants in the Bajaur region and in the Swat Valley, both to the northeast of Khyber, and there has been growing speculation about an offensive in the Mohmand area, to the north of Peshawar. Security forces were searching for militants along a road on the way to Mohmand on Tuesday and hundreds of villagers were leaving in fear of fighting, police and a government official said. "We haven't asked people to leave, they are doing it on their own, but it's good if they do so before any trouble starts," said the government official in Ghalanai, the main town in Mohmand. (Additional reporting by Kamran Haider, Izaz Mohmand and Faris Ali; Editing by Robert Birsel and Paul Tait)
Pakistani militants stand in front of a military vehicle after hijacking it in Khayber region November 10, 2008. Militants in northwest Pakistan hijacked 13 trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in ...
