Six killed in Christian school attack

Unidentified gunmen opened fire at a Christian school in a hill resort in northern Pakistan on Monday, killing six people and wounding at least three others, local authorities and hospital sources told IRIN. The incident, the latest in a series of terrorist attacks, will only exacerbate growing security concerns amongst the international community - mostly diplomats and aid workers in the country. The school, was reportedly frequented by foreign students, including children of diplomats, stationed in Pakistan. "About four or five men armed with Klashinkovs' [assault rifles] attacked a Christian school at Ghurial [village] today," Farooq Dar, a local official said from Murree, the picturesque hill resort, about an hour's drive from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Other reports said there were only two gunmen involved. "They first shot the two guards posted outside the school and later went in and fired indiscriminately," Dar added. "Afterwards they ran away." Hospital officials told IRIN from Murree, 30 km east of the capital, that two of the six killed had been identified as Pakistani Christians. Of the three wounded, one was a Christian and the other two were Muslims. The school, situated on a main public road, is surrounded by various army installations. "We strongly condemn this barbaric and brutal attack," Christian-rights activist and chairman of Pakistan's Minority Alliance, Shahbaz Bhatti, told IRIN from Lahore, capital of the country's Punjab province. "We have asked the government in the past to take concrete steps for the security of churches against attacks by pro-Taliban elements," he added, explaining that the Murree Christian school, run by American Protestant missionaries, was a favourite with the children of foreigners living in Pakistan. According to the BBC, there were at least 150 foreign students and staff at the school at the time of the attack. Meanwhile, international media reported that the United States consulate in the port city of Karachi, was closed down on Monday for unspecified security reasons. The US consulate was target of a bomb attack in June that killed 12 people. Many international aid organisations in Pakistan are taking extra precautions in the face of rising insecurity and terrorist threats in the country. Expatriate staff in particularly are being cautioned after several attacks targeting foreigners this year. Local security officials claim that some Islamic militants are involved in such attacks, apparently in retaliation for Pakistan's support for the US-led coalition against terrorism, which caused the routing of the hard line Islamic Taliban from neighbouring Afghanistan last year. Monday's school attack is the second on a Christian site this year. A grenade attack on a church in Islamabad in March killed five people, including a US diplomat's wife and stepdaughter. Last October gunmen opened fire on a church in the Punjab city of Bhawalpur, killing 16 Pakistani worshippers. Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in January and later killed. A car bomb near the Sheraton hotel in Karachi in May killed 14 people, including 11 French nationals working on a submarine project for the Pakistan Navy. Nine foreign tourists were injured in July in a blast in Manshera in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The mainly German tourists were visiting a historical site.