LANDI KOTAL: A health worker was gunned down during the ongoing polio vaccination campaign in Jamrud tehsil of Khyber Agency on Wednesday.

Khasadar Force officials said Fazal Amin was administering anti-polio drops to children in Sikandar Khel locality of Ghundi when assailants on a motorcycle fired at him, leaving him wounded.

He was taken to HayatabadMedicalComplex in Peshawar where he died, official sources said.

Security forces cordoned off the area after the incident and picked up 15 suspected tribesmen.

The banned Lashkar-iIslam militant group claimed responsibility for the attack with its spokesman Salahuddin Ayubi saying such assaults would continue.

Agency surgeon Dr Niaz Afridi told Dawn that the seven-day campaign would continue and that health workers kept doing their job in Ghundi and surrounding localities even after the attack.