Militants blow up girls school in Pakistan: police
Pastor Dale Morgan
Militants blow up girls school in Pakistan: police*
AFP - Thursday, June 4
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - - Militants blew up a girls' school on the
outskirts of Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday as the
military pressed on with an offensive against the Taliban, police said.
The school was heavily damaged in the attack in the Budaber area, about
10 kilometres (six miles) south of Peshawar, local police chief Abdul
Ghafoor Afridi said.
At least 40 kilogrammes (88 pounds) of explosives were used to blow up
the school, he said, adding that "four rooms were completely destroyed
and three were damaged."
Another police official, Shakarullah Khan, said militants used a timed
device to blow up the building.
There were no casualties as schools are closed for the summer, he said.
Police suspected the bombing was part of an intimidation campaign
because the government has used schools to shelter some of the 2.4
million people displaced by the military operation since late April.
Militants in the district of Swat, where the operation is concentrated,
have destroyed scores of schools, mostly for girls, during a two-year
campaign waged by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah to enforce sharia law.
Militants destroyed 191 schools in the valley, including 122 girls'
schools, leaving 62,000 pupils without classrooms, local officials have
said.
There has been no co-education in Swat for several years and schools
have created totally separate sections for boys and girls.