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Foreign aid workers killed in Pakistan blast

By Reza Sayah, CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • NEW: Three foreign aid workers were among eight people killed
  • Convoy was heading to a school reopening
  • School was celebrating after having been destroyed by militants
  • Remotely detonated bomb wounds 70 people, district police chief says
RELATED TOPICS
  • Pakistan

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Three foreign aid workers were among eight people killed Wednesday when a roadside bomb struck a convoy on its way to a girls' school opening in northwest Pakistan.

The explosion took place in Lower Dir in the North West Frontier Province, which has repeatedly come under militant attack in recent months.

The nationalities of the foreigners were not immediately known. The dead also included three students.

The blast wounded 70 others, said district Police Chief Mumtaz Zarin.

The school was celebrating its reopening Wednesday after militants had destroyed it in an earlier strike.

It was rebuilt by the Pakistani military as part of a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, a government entity that provides economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide.

The remotely detonated bomb damaged six rooms of the school, Zarin said.

Intelligence officials say attacks in the province are retaliation for an army offensive to rout militants from their havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

CNN's Kiran Khalid contributed to this report.