The U.S.-based Christian humanitarian group World Vision has suspended operations in Pakistan after six employees were killed Wednesday in a grenade attack in Northwestern Pakistan, according to media reports.
"It was a brutal and senseless attack," Dean Owen, spokesman for the Seattle-based organization, told reporters. "It was completely unexpected, unannounced and unprovoked."
The victims were all Pakistani nationals. The Associated Press reports that suspected armed militants attacked World Vision offices in the small town of Ogi with grenades. World Vision had been helping survivors of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake.
The AP reports that extremists have killed other people working for foreign aid groups in Pakistan and issued statements saying such organizations were working against Islam, greatly hampering efforts to raise living standards in the desperately poor region. As a result, many groups have scaled back their efforts in the northwest or pulled out altogether.