PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A bomb attack shook the opening ceremony of a girls' school Wednesday in northwestern Pakistan, leaving six people dead, including three foreigners, and 70 others wounded, officials said.
Media reports said the foreigners may have been aid workers attending the inauguration of the school in Lower Dir, which is prone to attacks by Islamist militants and lies next to al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds along the Afghan border.
Two of the dead and many of the wounded were female students, said police chief Mumtaz Zarin Khan. Security force members guarding the ceremony were also among the 70 wounded, as were three local journalists, said local doctor Wazir Muhammad.
Khan said he did not know the identities and professions of the dead foreigners.
The blast left a three-foot (one-meter) crater in the road close to the school, said Khan.
Security force members, girls' schools and foreigners have been frequent targets of attack for Taliban and other Islamist militants in Pakistan.
A slew of attacks have rocked the country since October, when the army launched a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area. More than 600 people have died in the onslaught.
Lower Dir shares a border with Afghanistan and with the Swat Valley, a region the army last year retook from militant control in an offensive.
As part of its offensive against militants in Swat, the Pakistani army has carried out operations in Lower Dir. Local tribes have also set up militias to root out insurgents taking refuge in the area.
Taliban militants have attacked dozens of girls' schools in northwest Pakistan, apparently as a means of imposing their strict version of Islam, which frowns on female education, on local communities. Rebuilding the girls' schools has been a priority for many foreign aid groups.
