Afghan girls poisoned in second anti-school attack
The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that radicals opposed to education of women and girls had used an unidentified toxic powder to contaminate the air in classrooms. Scores of students were left unconscious.
Afghanistan's intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security (NDS), says the Taliban appear intent on closing schools ahead of a 2014 withdrawal by foreign combat troops.
"A part of their Al Farooq spring offensive operation is ... to close schools. By poisoning girls they want to create fear. They try to make families not send their children to school," NDS spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.
Afghanistan's Ministry of Education said last week that 550 schools in 11 provinces where the Taliban have strong support had been closed down by insurgents.
Last month, 150 schoolgirls were poisoned in Takhar province after they drank contaminated water.
Since 2001 when the Taliban were toppled from power by US-backed Afghan forces, females have returned to schools, especially in the capital Kabul. They were previously banned from work and education.
But there are still periodic attacks against students, teachers and school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most of its support.
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@Mumtaz Khan
Your blanket statement about Afghans not (Afghanis) shows your ignorance and lack of education. Your hatred and resentment towards Afghanistan is obvious from your post.
The fact of the matter is that Afghans are neither extremists nor illiterate or ignorant and now that Afghanistan is developing, certain regional players want to halt this progress.
Tune in to an Afghan Television station and witness the level of education and sophistication before you spew your spiteful venom and paint Afghans and Afghanistan with a broad stroke of your dirty brush.
Knowledge is power, therefore the Taliban deny their women the right to education. Scientific studies in the past had shown that girls in general do better in schools than boys. The Taliban are envious and afraid of being outdone.
This is despicable and sad of the highest order.
But also criminal is the story reading like the 'Karzai Evening Bulletin'. Basic journalistic ethics would require at least SOME real data (evidence?) in support of what the story claims, other than the spokesman of the extremely corrupt/unrepresentative Afghan government. Was someone caught? Did someone claim responsibility? This is simply missing.
One might argue that with their established track record, the Taliban don't really need anyone's help cooking up more for them. Unless they're just everybody's boogie man now.
Poisoning young girls? In the name of Islam? These are the Afghan Taliban that Pakistan had imposed on Afghan population and would like to do so again if they could?
For shame!
@Mumtaz Khan: "That country and its people are cursed with ignorance, illeteracy and extremism. And they will continue like this forever." but then that is the power of true Islam, and its for you to see in most Muslim majority areas of world
@Muhammad Omar: they are true defender of Islam, not you so keep quite and watch the power of Allah and Islam
Look at the innocent face of these children who just have an inspiration to live a high quality of life through education. What thought must go through the minds of these religious psychopaths who can poison these kids who are trying to live their dream in midst of all the present hellish turmoil.
This is the ground reality in Afghanistan. US knows it and Karzai knows it. They can never change the mind set of the Afghanis. That country and its people are cursed with ignorance, illeteracy and extremism. And they will continue like this forever. The American people are the idiots here who think (sorry, they really cannot think) that they are freeing up a nation.
Sickening.
These are the points US must bargain on with Taliban as a part of their plan to leave Afghanistan in 2014. Else it will be 13 years of wasting more than 5 trilling $ of various nations and back to square.
Taliban think whatever they do is Islamic but the result is opposite of it, shame on these people who claim themselves defenders of Islam while they themselves kill their own kind instead of defending them.