AFGHANISTAN: Militants set fire to a school in southern Helmand

KABUL, 21 Feb 2006 (IRIN) - Suspected Taliban militants have set fire to a school for some 1,500 boys in Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand, officials confirmed on Tuesday.

"Last night militants set fire to a boys' high school in Zarghon village of Nadali district, around 17 km west of the district capital, Lashkargah. All the books, desks and chairs have been burnt, but no one was killed or injured in the incident," Haji Mohammad Qasim, head of Helmand's educational department, said, adding the villagers had extinguished the fire.

An investigation is now under way in the area, but nobody has been arrested yet, according to local police officials.

At least 15 schools have been set ablaze in Helmand since last year, and according to officials around 200 other schools have been closed in the southern provinces of Zabul, Kandahar, Helmand, and Urozgan due to insecurity.

Militants, battling US-led coalition and government forces, have recently launched numerous attacks on schools and teachers in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. Suspected Taliban guerillas set fire to three primary schools in the Nawa district of Helmand in January.

In December, suspected Taliban gunmen dragged a teacher from his classroom and shot him at the gates of his school after he ignored warnings to stop teaching boys and girls in a mixed class in the southern province of Helmand.

In a separate attack, also in December, gunmen shot and killed an 18-year-old male student and a guard at another school in Helmand. In Zabul province, also in the south, in another gruesome incident, a teacher was dragged from his home and beheaded in February.

Insecurity remains a key issue in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Despite the deployment of thousands of US and NATO forces, at least 1,600 people died in conflict-related violence in 2005. Ninety-one US troops died in combat or as a result of accidents in 2005 - more than double the total for 2004.

[ENDS]