ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An American teacher was wounded critically Thursday in Karachi after being shot in the head in an apparent terrorist attack that raised the possibility of links to the Islamic State, police said.
Authorities said Debra Lobo was vice principal of Jinnah Medical and Dental College, a private medical college in the southern city. Police said Lobo, 55, was shot twice when two men on a motorcycle fired into her car.
“The initial investigation suggests that this was a preplanned terrorist attack and was made on the lady because of her national identity,” said Asif Farooqui, a Karachi police official.
The two attackers escaped, he said.
Lobo’s father, James Kachic, said his daughter grew up in the San Fernando Valley in California but moved to Pakistan about 30 years ago to work as a Christian missionary. Lobo was married to a Pakistani man and was rearing two teenage daughters in Karachi, Kachic said.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad had no immediate statement on the attack. At a news briefing Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said: “We have seen the reports that a U.S. citizen was injured in a shooting incident in Karachi. Our consulate general … there is in close contact with Pakistani authorities and is working to obtain more information.”
Nawab Baqar, an administrator at the Jinnah college, said Lobo began working at the institution as a teacher about 1996. Her father said she had been trained as a physician’s assistant and used her medical background to try to improve Pakistan’s health care system.
A Karachi police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the gunmen left a note on the victim’s car implying affiliation with the Islamic State.
The note said the attack was revenge for a police operation in Karachi last week that killed five terrorism suspects, including the head of the local wing of al-Qaeda, the official said. Agence France-Presse said the note threatened more attacks on Americans.
