Kabul
\nA suicide bomb attack on a group of teenagers studying for university exams in Kabul, which killed 34 persons and wounded 56 on Wednesday, shocked Afghanistan but it was only the latest in a series of attacks on schools which have proved an easy target for militant groups.<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 schools across Afghanistan remain closed for security reasons and at least 86 have been destroyed by militant attacks this year alone, according to UN figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cAttacks on educational institutes by hardline Islamic groups are one of the most horrific issues facing our nation today,\u201d said Interior Minister Wais Ahmad Barmak after Wednesday\u2019s attack on the Mawoud Academy, a private study institute in west Kabul.<\/p>\n
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blast, which killed 34 persons, most of them students attending an English class.<\/p>\n
Most of the recent attacks on schools have been outside Kabul in provinces such as Nangarhar, a stronghold of IS, whose tactics have become notorious since it first appeared in Afghanistan some four years ago.<\/p>\n
Malikyar Hotak high school, in Nangarhar, has been attacked twice in the past few weeks. The first time, a remote-controlled bomb failed to go off, the second time, gunmen beheaded three guards and left the school\u2019s hallway spattered with blood.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, schools and educational institutions have become an easy target and a means of pressuring the government, for any group,\u201d said Kabir Haqmal, a spokesman at the ministry of education in Kabul.<\/p>\n
The Taliban, at one time notorious for attacking schools and forcing girls and women to stay at home, now seek to influence schools by negotiation with local education officials and say they do not oppose schooling for girls. Its rival Islamic State, however, has stepped up its attacks on schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kabul A suicide bomb attack on a group of teenagers studying for university exams in Kabul, which killed 34 persons and wounded 56 on Wednesday, shocked Afghanistan but it was only the latest in a series of attacks on schools which have proved an easy target for militant groups. More than 1,000 schools across Afghanistan […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39370"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39370\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39372,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39370\/revisions\/39372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}