Nato truck torched in Pakistan, US rallies Nato leaders

Taliban fighters torched a Nato supply truck in Pakistan's Khyber tribal district on Friday, killing two people, officials said. Meanwhile, US and Nato officials have called for financial commitments to Nato, including plans for a joint missile shield.

Reuters

About 12 Taliban attacked the truck with in Shah Kas village near the main north-western city of Peshawar before dawn.

They killed the driver and the cleaner and then set the truck on fire with petrol bombs.

Pakistan reopened a border crossing with Afghanistan for Nato supplies on Sunday – it was shut on 30 September after a cross-border assault from a Nato helicopter based in Afghanistan killed at least two Pakistani soldiers. 

Scores of Nato supply vehicles were destroyed in gun and arson attacks while the crossing was shut.

The United States, meanwhile, urged its Nato allies to invest in a missile shield and avoid harmful budget cuts at a meeting of defence and foreign ministers in Brussels on Thursday.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defence Secretary Robert Gates were backed up by Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. But French Defence Minister Hervé Morin expressed reservations.

Gates says linking Nato members with a common anti-missile network will cost between 85 million and 100 million euros.

Rasmussen said he was optimistic that the missile shield would be endorsed by Nato leaders at a summit in Lisbon on 19-20 November, saying it was well on the way to a consensus after the meeting.

France wants more details about how much the system would cost and how it would work, but Morin hinted that Paris would not block the missile shield plan in Lisbon.

Clinton warned that plans to slash Britain's military spending could damage the military alliance. In comments to the BBC, Clinton said she was worried by defence cuts in Europe and specifically Britain, which is expected to cut its defence budget by 10 per cent.

Nato leaders are expected to endorse plans to begin the handover of security responsibility to Afghan forces by July 2011 at next month's summit in Lisbon.