A bomb blast near a girls’ school in northwestern Pakistan has killed three American soldiers involved in a low-profile joint US-British programme to train the country’s paramilitary Frontier Corps.
Two more US military personnel were wounded in the attack in Lower Dir, near the Afghan border, which also killed a Pakistani paramilitary soldier and at least three children, according to American and Pakistani officials.
They were the first US military casualties in Pakistan since 2008, when two American military personnel were among those killed in a massive bomb attack on the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.
They were also believed to be the first killed by the Taleban and its allies in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where US operations are mostly conducted by the CIA using unmanned drones and agents on the ground.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Pakistani Taleban faction, claimed responsibility for the attack, alleging that the dead Americans belonged to the security company Blackwater Worldwide.
“We have warned we will take revenge and today we have avenged the deaths of innocent people,” said Azam Tariq, a TTP spokesman.
But the US embassy said that the American casualties were military trainers who had been attending an inauguration ceremony at a girls’ school, which had recently been renovated with US aid.
“The United States condemns this vicious terrorist bombing,” it added. “The United States and Pakistan are partners in fighting terrorism — and our people are working together to build schools.”
It said that the Americans were “US military personnel in Pakistan to conduct training at the invitation of the Pakistan Frontier Corps”.
Major General Athar Abbas, the Pakistani army spokesman, also confirmed that the dead included three US military trainers attached to the Frontier Corps, as well as one FC soldier, and three children.
The 60,000-strong Frontier Corps was founded by the British in 1907 to control the North West Frontier, and is still recruited from among the local tribes and tasked with patrolling the Afghan border.
The US began training it as part of a joint programme with Britain designed to improve security on the border, and reduce dependence on the Pakistani army, which is pre-occupied with India, its traditional enemy.
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