Islamists attack aid agencies

The Hindu News Update Service: "Enraged Islamic militants set on fire offices of two international aid agencies working in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province today in retaliation to the military action against militants in the Lal Masjid.

Local residents said that around 100 people, some of them armed, had come down from villages in the mountains surrounding Batgram town near Mansehra and attacked the offices of 'Care International' and the 'French Red Cross' and set the big tents on fire.

The aid agencies were working in the area for the survivors of the October 2005 earthquake that killed some 75,000 people in the NWFP and Northern areas.

'They were some 100 men who first attacked the offices, and chased the people including some foreigners there. They then resorted to large-scale looting there, taking everything from eatables to electronic items. They went back to the mountains without any resistance from a couple of policemen who were standing close by,' a local journalist said.

He said the militants had come down in the afternoon backed by their supporters high up in the mountains who kept the law enforcement agencies at bay with sniper shooting."