Three USAID officials, schoolgirls among six killed in Lower Dir blast - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Three US aid officials and three school children were killed and dozens other were injured in a powerful bomb blast in Lower Dir district on Wednesday. Earlier, unconfirmed reports said that four foreign journalists were killed in a roadside bombing in the region. Confirming the death of the American officials, a security official said the three officials belonging to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) were killed in the blast, which occurred near a girl's school. The names of those killed could not immediately be ascertained. "A convoy escorted by the paramilitary Frontier Corps was hit by a powerful roadside bombing near the Koto village in Hajiabad in Lower Dir, killing the three aid workers and three school children," the official said. "We can not release the identities of the aid workers", he added while requesting anonymity. "The explosion left 59 others wounded including five paramilitary personnel and two local journalists. The majority of those wounded were girls from a girls' high school situated on the main road," The Dawn quoted Deputy Coordination Officer, Lower Dir, Ghulam Muhammad, as saying.