6 Workers for US Charity Slain in Northwest Pakistan

(March 10) -- Militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the office of an American Christian charity in northwest Pakistan today, killing six aid workers who had been based there to help earthquake victims.

The charity World Vision set up an office in the relatively peaceful district of Mansehra in 2005 after an earthquake in neighboring Kashmir killed some 80,000 people. The area is part of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, where al-Qaida and the Taliban keep fighters, but it's outside the tribal belt where most of those militant bases are. The U.S. frequently uses unmanned drones to fire missiles at suspected terrorist bases in the area.

Insurgents armed with automatic weapons and grenades attacked the World Vision office, trapping wounded staffers inside, Pakistani authorities told news agencies. The attack sparked an hourslong gunbattle with police who rushed to the scene.

"They opened fire and also exploded hand grenades," senior police officer Waqar Ahmed told Pakistan's Geo TV. Six staffers were killed, including two women, and four others were wounded, police said.

All the victims were Pakistani nationals hired locally by World Vision.

"It was a brutal and senseless attack," World Vision spokesman Dean Owen told The Associated Press by telephone from Seattle. "It was completely unexpected, unannounced and unprovoked." Another spokesman told AP the charity has suspended operations across Pakistan because of the attack.

Extremists have frequently attacked foreign charities in Pakistan, especially Christian ones, which they accuse of spreading anti-Islamic ideas. Many groups have scaled down operations in North West Frontier Province or pulled out of Pakistan altogether.

The Taliban and other Islamic fundamentalist groups often see foreign aid organizations as a threat to their authority in Pakistan's tribal areas, in part because charities often employ women and support schooling for girls.

In 2008, militants killed four Pakistanis working in Mansehra for Plan International, a British charity that works with children. The aid group has since suspended its operations there.

World Vision is one of the world's largest Christian charities, helping some 100 million people with offices and temporary bases in 100 countries.