http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1208299,00.html

Girls 'poisoned by militants for going to school'

The Guardian

May 3, 2004

Greg Bearup in Islamabad

Three young girls in eastern Afghanistan were in critical condition in
hospital last night after being poisoned, apparently by militants as
punishment for attending school. The Afghan president, Hamid Karzai,
said those responsible for the poisonings, in the province of Khost,
were less than human. He said the attack had been carried out by
terrorists and was the work of foreign elements.

"I will not call anyone an Afghan or a Muslim who poisons an
eight-year-old child because she is schoolgoing," Karzai said. "They
are beasts."

Vikram Parekh, from the International Crisis Group, said there had
been a series of attacks on girls' schools, particularly in the south
of the country, in recent months but this was the first time children
had been attacked.

"A girl's school was recently burnt to the ground in Kandahar and
others have been attacked, but this is a horrible development to see
that the girls themselves would be targeted," he told the Guardian.

Few details of the incident were available last night, but militants
are angry about the Karzai government's reversal of a Taliban ban on
female education. Attacks on schools have also taken place in
Pakistan's neighbouring North West Frontier Province .