Pakistan road bomb injures four

Officials in north-western Pakistan have blamed Islamic militants for detonating a roadside bomb near the border with Afghanistan.

The bomb injured two female health workers, their driver and a passer-by.

Officials say their vehicle was targeted by a remotely controlled device near the town of Khar.

The injured women worked for the National Commission for Human Development and were heading for a rural health centre in the Bajur area.

Conservative area

"It was a terrorist act," the local administration chief for Khar, Tariq Hassan, told the AFP news agency.

Mr Hassan said that the two women were seriously injured in the attack, for which no-one has claimed responsibility.

Correspondents say that the blast occurred one week after a local religious group warned non-governmental organisations (NGOs) not to recruit women as health workers or teachers.

The group said that it was against Islamic practises for the NGOs to employ women and accused NGOs of attempting to spread western culture in a conservative area.

In January the US launched a missile strike on a village in the Bajur area in an effort to kill al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The strike killed 18 people but Pakistani officials said that Mr al-Zawahiri was not among the dead.