Taliban militants behead girls teacher
Johnny | 05.01.2006 13:14
Suspected Taliban militants have beheaded a headteacher in central Afghanistan, the latest in a string of gruesome attacks on teachers working in schools where girls are taught.
Armed men burst into the home of Malim Abdul Habib in Qalat, the capital of restive Zabul province, on Tuesday night. They dragged him into a courtyard and forced his family to watch as they cut off his head, said Ali Khel, a local government spokesman.
Mr Habib was head of Shaikh Mathi Baba, a coeducational secondary school with 1,300 pupils. Threatening notices calling for an end to the education of girls had been pinned to shop walls in the town in recent months but Mr Habib was not thought to have been directly targeted.
Hundreds of students attended his funeral yesterday. "Only the Taliban are against our girls being educated," Mr Khel said.
The Taliban insurgency has taken a brutal twist in the past year with militants avoiding shoot-outs with American troops - which they usually lose - in favour of targeted assassinations of teachers, aid workers and pro-government clerics.
Last month gunmen pulled a teacher in Helmand province from his classroom and shot him at the school gate after he ignored orders to stop teaching girls.
The violent tactics, which are concentrated in the southern provinces where a British-led Nato force is due to assume control next spring, appear to be working.
Nabi Khushal, the director of education in Zabul, told the Associated Press that 100 of the province's 170 registered schools had been closed over the past two years, mostly in remote areas, due to deteriorating security. Only 8% of the pupils are girls, he said.
The tactical shift, combined with a sharp rise in suicide attacks and roadside bombs, has stoked fears of a link with the Iraqi insurgency. A video of the decapitation of an alleged Afghan "collaborator" released last month bore many similarities to executions orchestrated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group.
Unicef spokesman Edward Carwardine said: "We hope these incidents will not deter families from sending their children to school."
Mr Habib was head of Shaikh Mathi Baba, a coeducational secondary school with 1,300 pupils. Threatening notices calling for an end to the education of girls had been pinned to shop walls in the town in recent months but Mr Habib was not thought to have been directly targeted.
Hundreds of students attended his funeral yesterday. "Only the Taliban are against our girls being educated," Mr Khel said.
The Taliban insurgency has taken a brutal twist in the past year with militants avoiding shoot-outs with American troops - which they usually lose - in favour of targeted assassinations of teachers, aid workers and pro-government clerics.
Last month gunmen pulled a teacher in Helmand province from his classroom and shot him at the school gate after he ignored orders to stop teaching girls.
The violent tactics, which are concentrated in the southern provinces where a British-led Nato force is due to assume control next spring, appear to be working.
Nabi Khushal, the director of education in Zabul, told the Associated Press that 100 of the province's 170 registered schools had been closed over the past two years, mostly in remote areas, due to deteriorating security. Only 8% of the pupils are girls, he said.
The tactical shift, combined with a sharp rise in suicide attacks and roadside bombs, has stoked fears of a link with the Iraqi insurgency. A video of the decapitation of an alleged Afghan "collaborator" released last month bore many similarities to executions orchestrated by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group.
Unicef spokesman Edward Carwardine said: "We hope these incidents will not deter families from sending their children to school."
Johnny