E-Paper
Taliban blow up girls' school in Pakistan
The Taliban blew up a girls' school on Sunday in northwest Pakistan, where troops are battling a militant insurgency, police said.
The Taliban blew up a girls' school on Sunday in northwest Pakistan, where troops are battling a militant insurgency, police said.
Islamist militants opposed to co-education have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years as they wage a fierce insurgency to enforce sharia law.
The nine-room private girls' high school in the town of Shabqadar, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of Peshawar, was destroyed when two bombs planted by militants exploded, senior police official Mohammad Riaz Khan said.
"The bombs were planted in two rooms and the blast has left the entire building unusable," Khan told AFP, adding that there were no casualties as the bombing occurred very early in the morning.
Pakistan's military is engaged in offensives against Islamist fighters across much of the northwest including the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a region branded by Washington as the most dangerous place on earth.
About 30,000 troops poured into South Waziristan in mid October to try and dismantle the strongholds of the Taliban leadership, enraging militants who have responded with a surge in bomb blasts and attacks.
