US soldiers and teenage girls killed in bombing near Pakistan school

Dozens of teenage girls were caught up in the blast outside their secondary school in Lower Dir, in the country's north-west. Three girls were killed along with one paramilitary force member.

The father of one wounded girl likened the scene to "doomsday".

A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack. "We will continue such attacks on Americans," Azam Tariq told Reuters.

The US embassy said the Americans had been assigned to help train the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force deployed in the tribal belt along the Afghan border. Local reporters initially mistook them for western journalists as they were wearing civilian clothes and carrying cameras.

The explosion, which appeared to be a remote-control roadside bomb, happened as the force's convoy passed the Koto girls' high school, where teenagers were streaming out for their mid-morning break.

Television footage showed distressed villagers scrambling to pull wounded girls from the rubble of collapsed buildings amid scattered books and bags.