Excite (www.excite.com) reports that Arab Muslim terrorists have attacked a Christian school in Pakistan, killing 6.

Masked gunmen firing Kalashnikov rifles stormed the campus of a Christian school in this mountain resort Monday, killing at least six people and wounding two others before escaping, police and other officials said.

Officials said they believed the attack was the latest in a series of violent incidents directed against Western interests in Pakistan because of the government's support for the war against terrorism. [...]

According to police and school officials, up to four men carrying sports bags approached a guard post at the entrance to the school, pulled out weapons and opened fire, killing a security guard. [...]

The attack was the third against Christian institutions in this predominantly Muslim country since President Pervez Musharraf joined the U.S.-led war against terrorism last year.

Sixteen people were killed in October when gunmen opened fire on a Protestant congregation in the city of Behawalpur. On March 17, an attacker hurled grenades into a Protestant congregation in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave, killing himself and four others, including an American woman and her 17-year-old daughter.

I copy the full article below.

6 Die at Pakistan Christian School
By LISA ADAMS, Aug 5, 2002
http://apnews.excite.com/
article/20020805/D7L78GH82.html

MURREE, Pakistan (AP) - Masked gunmen firing Kalashnikov rifles stormed the campus of a Christian school in this mountain resort Monday, killing at least six people and wounding two others before escaping, police and other officials said.

Officials said they believed the attack was the latest in a series of violent incidents directed against Western interests in Pakistan because of the government's support for the war against terrorism.

None of the about 150 students, including 30 Americans, and mostly British teaching staff were hurt in the attack, which took place about 11:20 a.m. at the Murree Christian School about 35 miles northeast of the capital, Islamabad, school authorities said.

The dead, all Pakistanis, included two security guards, a receptionist, a cook, a carpenter and a bystander, police said.

According to police and school officials, up to four men carrying sports bags approached a guard post at the entrance to the school, pulled out weapons and opened fire, killing a security guard.

One other security guard, a receptionist and a bystander were also killed, police said. However, a police constable who was in the area returned fire, and the gunmen began running across the campus, firing at one of the buildings as they sprinted past.

Before escaping, they also killed the cook and the carpenter who were hiding near the opposite end of the grounds from where the attack began.

The school director, Russell Morton of Australia, said the school had received no threats and had never been attacked since it was founded in 1956 to train children of Christian missionaries working in South Asia.

However, police chief Moravet Shah said he had warned the school weeks ago that it could be targeted because of its religious affiliation and identification as a foreign institution. After the warning, campus authorities stepped up security, he said.

In Islamabad, the Interior Ministry said it had no idea of the identities or motives of the attackers. However, a police officer at the scene said officials had found a note near where the shooting began expressing "resentment against the actions of a world power," presumably the United States. The policeman spoke on condition of anonymity.

Shahbaz Bhatti, head of a newly created alliance of minorities in Pakistan, condemned the attack, saying the government must track down and punish the perpetrators.

"This act of terrorism is a conspiracy against the solidarity and integrity of Pakistan and a threat to harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims," he said in a statement.

The attack was the third against Christian institutions in this predominantly Muslim country since President Pervez Musharraf joined the U.S.-led war against terrorism last year.

Sixteen people were killed in October when gunmen opened fire on a Protestant congregation in the city of Behawalpur. On March 17, an attacker hurled grenades into a Protestant congregation in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave, killing himself and four others, including an American woman and her 17-year-old daughter.

It was also the sixth attack this year against Westerners or Western interests, including the Islamabad church killing.

Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in January in Karachi and later murdered. On May 8, a bomb exploded in front of a Karachi hotel, killing 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis.

Another explosion killed 12 Pakistanis outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi on June 14. Last month, grenades were thrown at a bus carrying European tourists in northern Pakistan, injuring a dozen people, most of them Germans.

Posted by David Melle
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