Asia-Pacific

Militants destroy girls school in NW Pakistan

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-10-12 15:06

ISLAMABAD - Unidentified militants destroyed another girls school Tuesday morning by detonating explosive material in the Mohmand tribal area of northwest Pakistan, local media reported citing official sources.

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The number of schools destroyed by insurgent militants in Mohmand tribal area bordering Afghanistan has risen to 57 so far.

Earlier, two girls schools and a boys school were destroyed in bomb blasts Sunday morning.

Certain groups of Taliban militants believe that modern education is allegedly not in line with the Islamic scriptures, with female education being their main target. The ultra orthodox Taliban have been trying to implement their own distorted version of "Shariah" or Islamic jurisprudence in the insurgency-plagued northwest tribal areas of Pakistan.

Over 200 schools have been destroyed by militants in the adjacent Malakand area during the past couple of years. Analysts believed that one of the hidden motives behind sabotaging schools is to keep attendance level high in seminaries. Some seminaries have allegedly been involved in brainwashing young boys to take up militancy as a way of life, local media reported.

Reports suggested that young boys are lured to take up suicide bombing as an ultimate aim in life for seeking a guaranteed entry into heaven in the afterlife. It exhibits an alarmingly rising trend among teenagers in the insurgency-plagued northwest of Pakistan, which is the frontline in the US-led war against terrorism. Most of the suicide bombers, if not all, were teenagers in suicide bombing attacks in Pakistan.