School targeted in Pakistan's NWFP

Suspected militants targeted a school in a village in Pakistan's restive North West Frontier Province with a powerful bomb, police said on Sunday.

In the fifth attack within a week on schools in Dir district, located 200 km northwest of the provincial capital of Peshawar, militants detonated a bomb in the 20-room private school at Balambat village last night.

The explosion destroyed five rooms and damaged other rooms and walls. Another bomb planted by the militants did not explode and was defused, a police officer said.

School authorities said the building could not be used due to the damage caused by the blast.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. Local Taliban militants are usually blamed for targeting girls' schools in northwestern Pakistan.

Police said unidentified persons had distributed a pamphlet few days ago asking people not to send their daughters to schools as they are provided education in English.

Attacks on girls' schools have increased at a time when the NWFP government and local Taliban have signed a peace agreement. The Taliban had committed in the pact that they would not attack girls' schools.