The tanker was damaged when a bomb went off near a boys’ college in Landi Kotal in the tribal region of Khyber Agency. Abdul Nabi, a local government official, said that the people died when they gathered around the truck to siphon fuel and it exploded.
Two survivors were being treated for burns at the Landi Kotal Hospital.
Fuel prices in Pakistan, which are controlled by the government, have increased sharply in recent months, setting off protests and demonstrations across the country.
In a separate attack, 16 oil tankers were damaged Friday night in the nearby town of Torkham, at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, when a remote-controlled bomb exploded, Mr. Nabi said. No one was hurt. The tankers were idling at a parking lot, waiting for their turn to enter Afghanistan.
Also on Friday, a bomb aimed at a two-car convoy carrying American consular officials exploded in Peshawar. A Pakistani motorcyclist was killed, but no Americans died or were seriously wounded. Officials have been bracing for attacks on Americans or United States assets since Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan.
On Friday, American officials said files belonging to Bin Laden and captured in the Seal raid had discussed the idea of hijacking oil tankers and blowing them up at sea in the hopes of sending oil prices skyrocketing and rattling the world’s economy.
The bombings of the trucks follow a pattern in Pakistan, where Taliban insurgents and criminals attack vehicles carrying supplies for American and NATO troops. The supplies typically arrive in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi and travel overland to neighboring Afghanistan.
The Abdullah Azzam Brigade, a militant group affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for both the Friday and Saturday attacks.
On Saturday, the opposition politician Imran Khan was also hoping to disrupt the shipment of supplies to NATO troops by organizing a sit-in in Karachi. Mr. Khan, a former cricket player turned politician, said he was staging the sit-in to protest continuing drone attacks by the United States. He said he hoped to hold up the trucks until Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Khan has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the of the drone strikes, which he calls violations of the country’s sovereignty. The United States has used the strikes to kill militants, including those who use Pakistan as a base to attack NATO troops in Afghanistan. The drone campaign has become increasingly unpopular among Pakistan’s politicians.
An earlier sit-in organized by Mr. Khan’s political party Tehreek-e-Insaaf , or Justice Party, in Peshawar in April, drew only a few thousand people, contrary to the expectations of the organizers.
Jamal Siddqui, a spokesperson for the party in Karachi, said that by Saturday evening at least 10,000 people had gathered for the protest.?Mr. Siddqui said the local authorities had suspended the movement of NATO trucks from the city as a result.
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