Gunmen have attacked the office of a Western aid agency in north-western Pakistan, killing six people, it has been reported.

The victims, including two women, were all Pakistani nationals.

The attack took place on World Vision’s office in Mansehra district, 65km (40 miles), north of Islamabad.

No group has admitted carrying out the attack but Islamist militants and specifically the Taliban will be suspected, a BBC correspondent says.

Earlier in the week, following a bombing in Lahore, the Taliban said they would carry out more attacks across the country as long as US air strikes and Pakistani army operations against them continued in the tribal areas, the BBC’s Aleem Maqbool in Islamabad says.

‘Explosions’

Police official Sajid Khan told the AFP news agency that some armed people had stormed the building.

“There was firing and also an explosion inside,” he said.

One unidentified aid worker said the gunmen had “engaged in battle with the police” inside the building.

Several people were wounded in the attack.

Plan International’s offices in Mansehra were firebombed in 2008
“We are deeply sorry we’ve lost staff members, who were locals, who were deeply committed to improving lives in Pakistan,” World Vision’s spokesman James East was quoted as saying by the Associated Press news agency.

Attacks on aid workers and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are not uncommon in Pakistan.

In February 2008, British aid agency Plan International suspended its operations there after three of its workers were killed in an attack on its office in Mansehra.

Correspondents say Mansehra in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) had served as a base for militants operating in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Militant groups and religious parties in Pakistan have often accused NGOs of spreading “vulgarity” in society.

This is because NGOs mostly employ women workers and organise mixed social gatherings in line with their professed policy of gender equality, observers say.