Three Killed in Attack on British Aid Office in Pakistan

Three local employees of a British aid organization were killed today when gunmen stormed their office in north-west Pakistan, officials said.

Plan International said up to 12 attackers carrying guns and grenades entered its office in Mansehra at 4.15pm (1.15pm GMT) and opened fired indiscriminately before setting off three explosions. The office was burned to the ground, the group said in a statement.

"I'm so shocked. We have no idea what is behind this," the charity's country manager, Mia Haglund-Heelas, told guardian.co.uk.

She said intial reports of four people killed stemmed from confusion as they tried to account for missing staff after the blast.

Officers chased the attackers into a forest and the two sides exchanged gunfire, a police official, Attaullah Wazir, told Reuters.

Muhammad Niaz, a senior doctor at Mansehra's hospital, told the news agency another eight people were injured in the attack.

Mansehra lies about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the capital, Islamabad. Although the north-west frontier is notoriously lawless the city has not been associated with the Islamic militancy that has blighted much of the region.

Plan International has worked with the community in Mansehra for more than a decade and played a leading role in the relief effort in Pakistan after the devastating 2005 earthquake.

It immediately halted its operations in the country.

Plan International's chief executive, Tom Miller, said: "Our primary concern is for our staff and the families of those hurt in the attack."

The attack came on the same day a Pakistani general and seven other people were killed by a suicide blast in Rawalpindi, and after last week's parliamentary elections, in which President Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League Q party was heavily defeated.

The lack of support for the president's party was widely interpreted as a reaction to his failure to stem violence by militants.

Islamist parties also fared badly in the election, even in the north-west frontier where many militants operate.

The biggest winners were the Pakistan People's party, whose leader, the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated in December, and the Pakistan Muslim League N party of another former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif.