Two Charity Workers Shot Dead In Pakistan

http://www.rferl.org

Reports from northwestern Pakistan say unknown gunmen have shot dead two charity workers involved in an education project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Police said Zakir Hussain, head of the education wing of the Al-Khidmat Foundation in Charsadda district, was attacked with his driver Khadim Shah in the Utmanzai area on January 4. The two gunmen escaped on a motorcycle after the attack. The Al-Khidmat Foundation is the welfare wing of the hard-line Jamaat-e Islami party. On January 1, gunmen shot dead seven Pakistani aid workers in the northwestern Swabi district. Those killings were believed to be linked to the recent killings of polio vaccination workers. Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Taliban militancy for years. It also suffers from routine attacks blamed on various hardline Islamist factions. Meanwhile, reports say seven unidentified, bullet-riddled bodies have been found near the village of Sarobi in North Waziristan, one of seven tribal districts and a known base for Al-Qaeda-linked militants. Residents reportedly found the bodies dumped near a highway. Officials were still trying to confirm the reports. This is the second time in a week that bodies have reportedly been dumped in the same district. On December 31, nine bodies were recovered in the Mir Ali area. No one has claimed responsibility for the killings. A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban claimed those bodies were Taliban fighters who had recently been captured by security forces fighting militants in the area.