Two foreign women shot dead in west Afghanistan

89 killed in worst Afghanistan bombing since 2001?

HERAT -- Two foreign aid workers were shot dead in a drive-by shooting in Herat city, the provincial capital of western Afghanistan's Herat province on Thursday, sources said.

"Two foreign female staff of a non-governmental organization ( NGO) came under armed attack while traveling in a taxi in Shar-e- Naw locality on Thursday morning. Their bodies were shifted to Herat Regional Hospital," a police source told Xinhua anonymously.

The motive behind the attack and the nationalities of the victims remained unknown.

However, unofficial sources said the victims were from Finland and were working for International Assistance Mission, a non- profit Christian development NGO working in Afghanistan since 1966.

The attackers riding a motorcycle fled shortly after shooting in the city, 640 km west of Kabul.

The aid agency is running health, development and other projects across the war-torn country, the sources said.

"MOI (Ministry of Interior) confirms the killing of two foreign nationals by two unknown gunmen in Herat; massive search and hunt operation underway by police," interior ministry spokesman, Seddiq Seddiqi, said in his twitter account.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

Aid workers routinely came under attack in the militancy-hit country as 12 mine clearer personnel were killed and six others wounded in two separate attacks in Heart and eastern Logar Province over the past two months.