ISLAMABAD – A roadside bomb has killed at least eight people, including three US military personnel and four school girls, near a girls' school in northwest Pakistan. Local police said that Wednesday's blast was caused by an improvised explosive device. The US Embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the Americans were in the area to attend the opening ceremony of the girls' school when the bomb exploded. "Three Americans were killed and two injured in a terrorist bomb explosion at about 11:20am in the Lower Dir district of Pakistan's federally-administered tribal areas," the embassy said in a statement. "The Americans were US military personnel in Pakistan to conduct training at the invitation of the Pakistan Frontier Corps. They were in Lower Dir to attend the inauguration ceremony of a school for girls that had recently been renovated with US humanitarian assistance." Pakistani officials said a Frontier Corps soldier and four schoolgirls also died. "We have four dead bodies. They are schoolgirls aged 10 to 15. We have received 65 injured, most of them are girls," Mohamed Wakeel, chief doctor at the local Taimargara Hospital, said. Pakistan's Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing and threatened more attacks. "We claim responsibility for the blast," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq said. The school had been blown up in January 2009 and rebuilt with the help of a foreign aid organisation. Foreign aid workers and journalists have been particularly interested in girls' education in parts of northwest Pakistan, where Taliban fighters opposed to co-education have destroyed hundreds of schools. On Tuesday, at least 29 people were killed and many more wounded in a suspected US drone attack in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. Officials said a series of missiles rained down on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border. They said the missiles struck suspected fighters' hideouts and a training centre. Reporters in Islamabad said there were reports that up to 19 missiles had been fired. "One thing is quite clear – this was perhaps one of the largest attacks carried out so far," reporters said.
