Maoist rebels, fighting to topple Nepal's constitutional monarchy, cut off all land routes to the Himalayan kingdom's capital on Wednesday, disrupting food and supplies to the city of 1.5 million people.
All roads leading to Kathmandu, a temple-studded tourist hub ringed by lush green hills, were nearly empty, as buses, trucks and cars stayed off the highways due to threats from rebels enforced this first ever blockade of the capital.
Soldiers with Belgian rifles stood behind sandbag bunkers at a checkpoint on a mountain road linking Kathmandu with the southern plains bordering India. Military trucks escorted a small convoy of buses and taxis.
"We're escorting vehicles and have deployed more troops to patrol the highway," Brigadier Netra Bahadur Thapa told reporters at Nagdhunga, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Kathmandu.
"This call for a blockade is some kind of propaganda to scare people. There is no violence so far."
The army said there had been only about 70 vehicles on the road, compared with about 800 on a normal day. The road is a lifeline for Kathmandu, bringing in about 90 percent of its supplies.
The rebels are campaigning to establish a communist state in the desperately poor Himalayan nation perched between Asian giants China and India.
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