PRESENTATION ORDER nuns in Pakistan have expressed fears that more of their schools in the country's restive North-West Frontier province could be targeted by militants after a bomb attack earlier this week destroyed a local school run by the order.
The secondary school, located 25km (15 miles) from Mingora, the main town in the province's picturesque Swat valley, was bombed in a morning attack on Monday and then looted, before it was later bombed again and set alight. Pakistani media reported that a nearby boys college was also blown up.
The school, which was established by the Presentation Order in 1965, catered for 1,000 students but had not opened for the current academic year due to the deteriorating security situation in the region.
Pakistan's army and police have been battling Taliban-linked militants in the Swat valley and outlying tribal areas for more than a year.
According to local media reports, clashes have recently taken place close to where the school was located.
Scores of girls schools have been targeted as the militants, a mix of foreign fighters and home-grown hardliners who want to impose a harsh sharia-based regime, have strengthened their foothold in the area.
The mountainous Swat valley was until last year a favourite holiday destination for many Pakistanis and it featured the country's only ski resort.
It is understood the Presentation nuns fear that their three other schools in the North-West Frontier province - two in Peshawar and one in Risalpur - could also come under attack.
Four Irish nuns are currently based in Pakistan, but all four have been withdrawn from rural outposts because of security fears.
"We utterly condemn this attack," a spokesman for Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari told The Irish Timeslast night.
He said several attacks had taken place in the troubled region since, including a roadside bomb that exploded close to a prison vehicle and school bus yesterday, killing at least 10 people.
Last night officials in Islamabad said Pakistani fighter jets and helicopter gunships had destroyed a militant stronghold in Piochar, a village in the Swat valley, killing 20 militants.
Meanwhile, Salman Rushdie has condemned the bombing of the Presentation Order-run school.
The novelist, in Dublin yesterday to address the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI) awards, said: "What a terrible thing to happen. It just shows that Pakistan has been playing this very dangerous game since 9/11."