Supplies blocked for third day - Pak army, NATO launch probe

* Investigation team will visit Afghanistan to carry out an inquiry and hold talks regarding the attacks

LAHORE: Officials of the Pakistan Army and NATO forces launched a joint investigation into the border incursions that killed three Pakistani soldiers on Thursday, as blockade of NATO supplies from Pakistan into Afghanistan continued on Saturday for a third day.

According to a report, the investigations, to be led by officials of the Pakistan Army, would also include US army officials. The investigating team would visit Afghanistan to carry out an inquiry and hold talks regarding the attacks, the report added.

Stern action would be taken against those involved in the cross border attack. The three Pakistani troops were killed in an early morning raid on Thursday when NATO choppers fired at a Pakistani military post 200 metres inside the border in the Kurram Agency.

Pakistan halted the convoys on Thursday as a reaction to the deaths of the three soldiers.

“The situation is the same. The border is blocked for NATO supplies,” an official at Torkham, the main border crossing in Pakistan’s Khyber district, said.

A senior security official in Peshawar also confirmed that the convoys had been suspended for third day but said negotiations to solve the problem had been underway.

“Long queues of trucks and oil tankers are waiting along Torkham and in the adjacent areas for the reopening,” the official at Torkham said. daily times monitor/afp