By Michael Georgy
MANSEHRA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Suspected Islamist militants attacked the office of a U.S.-based Christian aid agency in Pakistan on Wednesday with a bomb and gunfire, killing five members of staff, police and the agency said.
Nuclear-armed U.S. ally Pakistan is battling al Qaeda-linked militants who have launched a string of attacks over the past few years, including some on foreign targets.
Gunmen burst into the office of the World Vision agency in Mansehra district, 65 km (40 miles) north of Islamabad, at about 9 a.m. (4 a.m. British time), police said.
"They entered the building, set off a bomb and then opened fire," senior police officer Sajid Khan told Reuters by telephone from Mansehra.
World Vision said the five dead were all local staff members and that it was suspending all operations in Pakistan.
Seven members of staff were wounded and one was missing, the aid agency said in a statement, adding that its relief and development work in Pakistan was conducted by Pakistanis.
"Those who kill humanitarian workers must be reminded that they are not only killing their own country's residents, but also people seeking to improve the lives of victims of poverty and injustice," it said.
Mansehra town, in North West Frontier Province, has been a hub for relief efforts following an earthquake that killed 73,000 people in October 2005.
The area has been generally peaceful although there have been occasional incidents of violence.
In 2008, gunmen attacked an office of the Plan International aid agency in Mansehra town, killing four Pakistani staff. The district is east of the Swat region, where the army launched an offensive a year ago to clear it of Pakistani Taliban. The offensive raised fears at the time the militants might be pushed into Mansehra.
Police exchanged fire with the attackers and were hunting for them, Khan said.
"They have fled to nearby forest. Our teams have cordoned off the area and launched a search," he said, adding two women were among the dead.
The United Nations and aid agencies have occasionally been forced to limit their operations and the movement of foreign staff because of security worries but many relief groups are still operating in Pakistan.
Aid workers operating in the conservative rural Mansehra district have met some hostility, often in connection with the presence of women members of staff and projects aimed at women.
World Vision said it had not received any threats before the attack.
Khan was critical of the aid group's security.
"They did not have proper security arrangements. They have just one guard who didn't have a weapon," he said.
(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony and Kamran Haider; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Paul Tait)
