Militants Kill 2 Guarding Polio Workers11/03 06:38

   

   PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Suspected militants riding a motorcycle shot and 
killed two police officers assigned to protect polio workers during a 
door-to-door vaccination campaign Tuesday in northwestern Pakistan, officials 
said.

   The drive-by shooting in Mohmand, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province 
that borders Afghanistan, also wounded a third officer. The police officers 
were traveling to a nearby village to guard vaccination teams when they came 
under fire, police officer Ayaz Khan said.

   The attackers fled the scene. No group immediately claimed responsibility 
for the attack.

   The Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups regularly target anti-polio 
drives and police protecting health workers, falsely claiming that polio 
vaccination campaigns are part of a Western conspiracy to sterilize children.

   In Islamabad, Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the attack was 
"intolerable" and offered his condolences to the families of the killed 
officers, who he said worked for a healthier future for the country.

   Separately, suspected militants the previous day abducted four polio workers 
in Tank, another district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to a statement from 
provincial Gov. Faisal Karim Kundi. He condemned the abductions and urged 
authorities to take immediate steps to secure the workers' safe release as soon 
as possible.

   Pakistan began a nationwide campaign Monday to vaccinate 24 million children 
against polio as part of efforts to eradicate the disease. Pakistan and 
neighboring Afghanistan remain the only countries where wild poliovirus is 
endemic, according to the World Health Organization.