Six killed in attack on World Vision office in Pakistan

Pakistani police officers at the offices of World Vision in North-West Frontier Province after it was attacked on Wednesday

There are concerns that aid groups are becoming targets for militant groups in Pakistan, after six aid workers were killed when militants struck a World Vision office in the North-West Frontier Province.

It is not the first time an aid group has been targeted and World Vision has suspended its operations in Pakistan. It is likely other groups will soon follow.

World Vision said the office was targeted because it was running programs to help women.

A group of about 15 gunmen stormed into the offices in the Mansehra district on Wednesday.

Witnesses say they gathered the staff together and then dragged them off one by one to a separate room, where they were executed.

They added that a bomb had been thrown as the gunmen left the building after the attack, leaving a large crater by the door.

According to a local police officer quoted by the Associated Press, the bomb was a detonated by remote control after the attackers had left the building.

They left a locally made pressure-cooker bomb that exploded soon after the attackers fled the scene, killing NGO people first by gunfire and then with the blast.

Six Pakistani aid workers, including two women, were killed, and about six others were badly injured.

World Vision Australia chief executive Reverend Tim Costello says the group has now suspended its operations in Pakistan indefinitely.