Image
© Fayaz Aziz/ReutersAn injured driver survived an ambush by gunmen in Swabi district, Pakistan, on Tuesday.
Continuing a militant campaign of violence against aid workers in Pakistan, gunmen on Tuesday shot dead seven Pakistani teachers and health workers, six of them women, police officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the shooting, in the Swabi district of the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, fit a pattern of militant attacks against charity and aid workers across the country in recent weeks that officials have attributed to the Pakistani Taliban. The militant offensive has brought a wave international outrage, particularly because it has focused on vaccination and health workers in a country where polio and measles have made troubling gains.

The attack on Tuesday, near the village of Sher Afzal Banda, was conducted by two men on a motorcycle who opened fire on a van bringing the workers home, the police said. The dead worked for the private Pakistani aid group Support With Working Solution, which works in the health and education sectors.

"They opened fire and killed six females and one male," said Javed Akhtar, the executive director of the aid group, in a telephone interview. "One child, aged 7 to 8 years, miraculously survived." His group started out in 1991 and in conjunction with other aid groups has focused on Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province and on South Waziristan in the tribal region, both deeply affected by both poverty and militancy.

Five of the dead were young women who worked as teachers at a primary-level school the charity ran in the area, Mr. Akhtar said. The other two were health workers.

Mr. Akhtar said that no prior warning or threat had been given to his organization by militants. But he and a wide range of Pakistani officials believed that the attack was part of the broader Pakistani Taliban campaign against aid workers.

Last month, at least eight Pakistani volunteers in an internationally supported polio vaccination drive were killed by militants across the country. Senior militants leaders have long accused vaccination drives of being a cover for government and international espionage and regularly threatened workers and officials involved in the effort, though never before to such deadly effect.