Afghanistan only nation on earth to bar half its population from secondary education

A boy poses with a rifle near the camel enclosure at the Kabul zoo. Pic/AFP

The Taliban have effectively banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, by ordering high schools to reopen only for boys. The edict makes Afghanistan the only country to bar half its population from getting a secondary education, The Guardian reported.

Girls were not mentioned in Friday's announcement, which means boys will be back at their desks next week after a one-month hiatus, while their sisters will still be stuck at home, the newspaper said in the report. The Taliban Education Ministry said secondary school classes for boys in grades seven to 12 would resume on Saturday, the start of the Afghan week.

Schoolgirls gather at their gender-segregated school in Kabul. Pic/AFP

"All male teachers and students should attend their educational institutions," the statement said. The future of girls and female teachers, stuck at home since the Taliban took control, was not addressed. This was the group's feared enforcer in the 1990s, charged with beating women who violated bars on everything from going out in public without a male guardian to an obsessively prescriptive dress code, the report said.

US military admits to ‘tragic mistake'

The US military has admitted that an American drone strike in Kabul last month killed as many as 10 civilians. "Having thoroughly reviewed the findings of the investigation and the supporting analysis by inter-agency partners, I am now convinced that as many as 10 civilians, including up to seven children, were tragically killed in that strike," Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command said. "We now assess that it is unlikely that the vehicle and those who died were associated with IS-K, or were a direct threat to US forces," he added. The General admitted the deadly strike was "a tragic mistake".

Explosions in Jalalabad, Taliban officials among dead

At least two people were killed and up to 20 more wounded in three explosions in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad on Saturday, a Taliban official said. "Women and children were among the injured," he said. The attacks are the first deadly blasts since the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Jalalabad is the capital of Nangarhar, the heartland of Afghanistan's Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for a bloody attack that killed more than 100 people at Kabul airport at the end of August.

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