Gunmen attack school bus in Pakistan's Punjab, killing two children | Gun violence news

Police believe the attacker acted out of personal “hostility,” but investigators are also examining the possibility of “terrorism.”

Gunmen opened fire on a school bus in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab, killing two children, police said.

In the attack, which took place in a village in Attock district on Thursday morning, five children were injured on their way to school.

According to police, the attackers apparently targeted the driver, who was also injured.

According to local authorities and the media, the children were only five years old.

“Our initial investigation suggests that there was animosity between the driver and someone,” Mohammad Shakil, a local police officer, told the Associated Press.

Preliminary investigations into the motive of the attack pointed to a feud between two families, Usman Haider, another police officer, told the German news agency DPA.

However, the police are also investigating “the possibility of terrorism,” he added.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attack and ordered that the injured be given the best possible medical treatment.

The Attock district is located not far from Pakistan's troubled northwest, where attacks by armed groups have increased in recent years.

In 2014, Taliban fighters killed nearly 150 children in an attack on a military-run school in northwest Pakistan.

In 2012, Malala Yousafzai, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, was injured in another Taliban attack on a school bus in the Swat Valley.