10 Arrested In Acid Attack On Afghan Girls
Afghan police have arrested 10 Taliban militants involved in an acid attack against 15 girls and teachers walking to school in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor said Tuesday.
"Several" of the arrested militants have confessed to taking part in the attack earlier this month, said Kandahar Gov. Rahmatullah Raufi. He declined to say exactly how many confessed.
High-ranking Taliban fighters paid the militants a total of $2,000 to carry out the attack, Raufi said. The attackers came from Pakistan but were Afghan nationals, said Doud Doud, an Interior Ministry official.
The attackers squirted acid from water bottles onto three groups of students and teachers walking to school in Kandahar city on Nov. 12. Several girls suffered burns to the face and were hospitalized. One teenager couldn't open her eyes days after the attack, which sparked condemnation from around the world.
Afghanistan's government called the attack "un-Islamic," while the U.N. labeled it "a hideous crime." U.S. first lady Laura Bush decried it as cowardly.
Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban regime, the hard-line Islamists who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and one of Afghanistan's most conservative regions, a place where women rarely venture far from home.
A Taliban spokesman earlier this month denied that Taliban militants were involved in the attack.
Girls were banned from schools under Taliban rule, and women were only allowed to leave the house wearing a body-hiding burqa and accompanied by a male family member.
The country has made a major push to improve access to education for girls since the Taliban's ouster. Fewer than 1 million Afghan children - mostly boys - attended school under Taliban rule. Roughly 6 million Afghan children, including 2 million girls, attend school today.
But many conservative families still keep their girls at home.
Raufi said girls attending Mirwais Mena girls' school didn't attend class for three days after the attack, but have since returned.
Kandahar province's schools serve 110,000 students at 232 schools, Raufi said. But only 10 of the 232 are for girls. Some 26,000 girls go to school, he said.
Arsonists have repeatedly attacked girls' schools and gunmen killed two students walking outside a girls' school in central Logar province last year. UNICEF says there were 236 school-related attacks in Afghanistan in 2007.
The Afghan government has also accused the Taliban of attacking schools in an attempt to force teenage boys into the Islamic militia.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the country's intelligence agency said it has arrested four people, including three religious leaders and a youth, for alleged involvement in suicide and other bomb attacks in northern Kunduz province.
The ring was broken up after a failed bombing mission in the province earlier this year when the would-be bomber failed to properly detonate his explosives, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.
© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. "Several" of the arrested militants have confessed to taking part in the attack earlier this month, said Kandahar Gov. Rahmatullah Raufi. He declined to say exactly how many confessed.
High-ranking Taliban fighters paid the militants a total of $2,000 to carry out the attack, Raufi said. The attackers came from Pakistan but were Afghan nationals, said Doud Doud, an Interior Ministry official.
The attackers squirted acid from water bottles onto three groups of students and teachers walking to school in Kandahar city on Nov. 12. Several girls suffered burns to the face and were hospitalized. One teenager couldn't open her eyes days after the attack, which sparked condemnation from around the world.
Afghanistan's government called the attack "un-Islamic," while the U.N. labeled it "a hideous crime." U.S. first lady Laura Bush decried it as cowardly.
Kandahar is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban regime, the hard-line Islamists who ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and one of Afghanistan's most conservative regions, a place where women rarely venture far from home.
A Taliban spokesman earlier this month denied that Taliban militants were involved in the attack.
Girls were banned from schools under Taliban rule, and women were only allowed to leave the house wearing a body-hiding burqa and accompanied by a male family member.
The country has made a major push to improve access to education for girls since the Taliban's ouster. Fewer than 1 million Afghan children - mostly boys - attended school under Taliban rule. Roughly 6 million Afghan children, including 2 million girls, attend school today.
But many conservative families still keep their girls at home.
Raufi said girls attending Mirwais Mena girls' school didn't attend class for three days after the attack, but have since returned.
Kandahar province's schools serve 110,000 students at 232 schools, Raufi said. But only 10 of the 232 are for girls. Some 26,000 girls go to school, he said.
Arsonists have repeatedly attacked girls' schools and gunmen killed two students walking outside a girls' school in central Logar province last year. UNICEF says there were 236 school-related attacks in Afghanistan in 2007.
The Afghan government has also accused the Taliban of attacking schools in an attempt to force teenage boys into the Islamic militia.
Elsewhere in Afghanistan, the country's intelligence agency said it has arrested four people, including three religious leaders and a youth, for alleged involvement in suicide and other bomb attacks in northern Kunduz province.
The ring was broken up after a failed bombing mission in the province earlier this year when the would-be bomber failed to properly detonate his explosives, the agency said in a statement Tuesday.
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So Taliban belivers seek to prevent the education of the children of Afghanistan. Because they will learn that the Taliban is a hate group, intolerant to a modern society, and devoted to the failure of America''s assistance in the face of evil. You know it because it''s true. This isn''t some GOP or far right hyperbole, it''s ignorance seeking to keep others more ignorant.
Posted by miriambk at 09:51 AM : Nov 26, 2008
Ths SAME THING!
deathofusa??? what are you dumb???
Posted by notblue
I don''t defend oppression against women. There was nothing in my post that indicated that. How can anyone make up things to support an ineffective rant? Just people like you I guess!
Posted by darnedsocks
Lets see...I think it was last Spring when a church wouldn''t allow a female to referee a boys basketball game because "females don''t have authority over boys". Also, isn''t it the christians who resist teaching science in high school science class? Possibly because they are anti-knowledge and anti-education because new (and old) discoveries go against their beliefs?