PESHAWAR: A roadside bomb hit a car carrying officers assigned to guard well being staff conducting a polio immunization drive in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, wounding six officers and three civilians, officers mentioned. No polio staff have been damage within the assault in South Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, native police official Tahrir Sarfraz mentioned. He mentioned nobody has claimed duty for the assault, which apparently focused police. Anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan are commonly marred by violence. Militants goal vaccination groups and police assigned to guard them, falsely claiming that the campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize youngsters. The most recent assault got here hours after Pakistan launched a drive to vaccinate 30 million youngsters in opposition to polio. Since January, Pakistan has reported 17 new instances, jeopardizing a long time of efforts to eradicate polio within the nation. Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the one international locations wherein the unfold of polio has by no means been stopped. The possibly deadly, paralyzing illness principally strikes youngsters below age 5 and sometimes spreads by contaminated water.