ISLAMABAD Police investigators are close to tracking down one member of the gang of militants that attacked Nato oil tankers in Rawalpindi on Sunday night.

Knowledgeable sources told Dawn on Monday that two motorbikes found abandoned in the forested area close to the place of attack provided leads to the investigators.

Registration records showed that the bikes had been sold and resold many times.

Police combing of the area in the immediate aftermath of the attack had arrested three suspects in pursuit of the fleeing attackers.

No details were disclosed about them except that they belonged to Waziristan and Afghanistan and could not explain their presence in the area.

Three people were killed and four tankers were burnt totally, and nine partially, in the Sunday night attack by the gang of six to eight militants.

The investigators think the gang might have had links with the much bigger attack on a Nato supply convoy at Tarnol in June in which over 150 trucks were destroyed, according to the sources.

Investigators hope to reach the attackers when they catch hold of the last buyers of the two motorbikes recovered from the wooded area near Jeddah Town where Nato oil tankers were parked in a big compound.

According to the sources the six or eight militants riding motorcycles roared in there around midnight.

They started firing their SMGs, AK-47 and 44-bore rifles and pistols at the trucks parked at the terminal at Morgah, on the border of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, to fill up at the Attock Oil Refinery.

Only the lead tanker, among a convoy of 28, was filled. Three persons guarding the terminal were killed fighting the attackers off. The flying bullets drilled holes into the lead tanker carrying 8,000 litres of oil.

It started leaking and caught fire. The sources said the attackers were seen soaking cloth in the leaking oil, making fireballs and throwing them at other tankers which were empty. They shouted orders to each other in Pushto and Punjabi.

Nine security guards and tanker drivers suffered bullet injuries. Staff of the terminal and crew of the trucks ran for their lives.

Police reached in force at the battle scene within 20 minutes and engaged the attackers who then melted away. The place was littered with huge quantity of spent ammunition.

Police said the terminal on 12 kanal of land was owned by Taj Mohammad Afridi who operated Al-Haj Enterprises. As contractor, he maintains a fleet of 600 tankers to supply fuel to Nato forces in Afghanistan.