Photo via islamicity.com

World Vision suspends operations in Pakistan

World Vision is suspending its operations in Pakistan after militants attacked its office in the country's northwestern Mansehra district on Wednesday, March 10, 2010, killing six people, reports Dan Wooding, founder of ASSIST Ministries.

The BBC is reporting that police and the agency have said that the victims, including two women, were all Pakistani nationals working for World Vision in the area.

No group has admitted carrying out the attack but Islamist militants and specifically the Taliban will be suspected, a BBC correspondent says.

Earlier in the week, following a bombing in Lahore, the Taliban said they would carry out more attacks across the country as long as US air strikes and Pakistani army operations against them continued in the tribal areas, the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says.

World Vision said in a statement that it had not received any threatening letters ahead of the attack.

“Hundreds of people have been killed in attacks by unmanned drone aircraft in Pakistan's tribal areas since mid-2008,” said the BBC story. “Two suspected US missile strikes near Miranshah in North Waziristan on Wednesday killed at least 12 people, some of them thought to be foreigners, local officials said.

The BBC said that gunmen burst into the building in the village of Oghi, some 80km (50 miles) north of Islamabad, early on Wednesday morning.

“About 10 men came, they were all wearing masks. They kicked the doors down, took everyone out of their offices, put them in one place and started shooting,” an office administrator told the AFP news agency.

He added that a bomb had been thrown as the gunmen left the building after the attack, leaving a large crater by the door.

World Vision confirmed that seven members of staff had been injured during the attack.

Attacks on aid workers and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are not uncommon in Pakistan.

In February 2008, British aid agency Plan International suspended its operations there after three of its workers were killed in an attack on its office in Mansehra.

Correspondents say Mansehra, in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), had served as a base for militants operating in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

“Last month,” said the BBC, “two simultaneous suicide attacks on police targets in Mansehra left one police officer dead and several other people injured. Militant groups and religious parties in Pakistan have often accused NGOs of spreading ‘vulgarity’ in society.

“This is because NGOs mostly employ women workers and organize mixed social gatherings in line with their professed policy of gender equality, observers say.

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TAGS: Pakistan World Vision anti-Christian attacks persecution aid agency

[03/11/2010]

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