MOSCOW, June 23 (RIA Novosti) – Ten people, including nine foreign tourists and one local guide, were shot dead by unknown gunmen in northern Pakistan, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday, referring to Pakistani police.
The attack occurred early on Sunday when unidentified gunmen opened fire at tourists living in a hotel at the foot of Nanga Parbat, the world’s ninth highest mountain located in Pakistan’s Gilgit region. The ten killed included five from Ukraine, three from China and one from Russia, with the tenth's nationality yet to be determined.
There were an estimated 10 to 12 militants who carried out the attack, local media quoted eyewitnesses as saying.
They woke up the tourists in sleep and ordered them to come out of the hotel and then opened fire at them, the local police said.
Most of those killed were tourists coming to the area to climb the mountain, the police said. The hotel, which is named Fairy Meadows, is located at a base camp of Nanga Parbat in the remote Diamir area of Gilgit.
Media reports said the tenth killed was a female local guide.
The attack site is far away from Gilgit and it would take two days to reach there by road and the police were thinking of asking the army to airlift the bodies out of that area, first to Chilas town in Gilgit for postmortem, then to the country's capital of Islamabad, Xinhua reported.
The army has also been requested to launch a search operation in the area to hunt down the attackers.
Both Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif have condemned the attack. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet, Xinhua said.
