French aid agency staffer wounded in firing near Kohat

Pakistani driver working for NGO was shot in the arm.

PESHAWAR: Gunman on a motorcycle fired on a vehicle being used by French aid organisation ACTED on Tuesday in troubled northwestern Pakistan, wounding the driver, police said.

The attack took place at Jarma, a low-income neighbourhood on the outskirts of the garrison town of Kohat, where thousands of displaced tribesmen from the Khyber and Orakzai tribal district as well as Afghan refugees are living.

District police chief Saleem Khan Marwat said staff from ACTED (Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development) were fired at by a man who fled on a motorcycle.

There were two staff members, both Pakistanis, and a driver in the vehicle and the driver was shot in the arm. His condition is stable at hospital, Marwat said.

An official of the NGO in Pakistan confirmed the details of the attack.

ACTED was working to improve sanitation and hygiene for displaced families.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Foreign-funded NGOs are viewed with particular suspicion in Pakistan after the arrest of a Pakistani doctor who helped the CIA find Osama bin Laden through a fake vaccination campaign.