Islamabad, Sept. 23, (dpa/GNA) – A school for girls was blown up in north-western Pakistan in the first bombing targeting female education in several years, weeks after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
The bomb went off late Wednesday night at the school in the town of Tank that is adjacent to South Waziristan, a region on the Afghan border that has long served as a base for militants linked to al-Qaeda.
The explosion partially destroyed the outer wall and a classroom, local police official Mujeeb Ullah told dpa.
No one was killed or hurt and no arrest has been made so far, the officer added.
No group has claimed responsibility, though the Pakistani Taliban had targeted hundreds of girls’ schools in the region before they were pushed back in military operations since 2014.
The shooting of Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai in 2012 and an assault on an army-run school two years later to kill around 150 children were the worst Taliban attacks on education in Pakistan.
The Pakistan Taliban follow the same hard-line interpretation of Sunni Islam as their Afghan counterpart but they have a different organizational setup.
The latest attack occurred weeks after the Afghan Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, a development analysts say has emboldened Islamist militants in Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban have partially banned girls’ education in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their attacks on the country’s security forces in their former stronghold regions near the Afghan border since the fall of Kabul.
There was more than an attack a day including suicide bombings and ambushes in August alone.
GNA