“Activists placed improvised explosive devices in two public schools for girls, which exploded late at night,” Rahan Gul Khatak, a senior official in the local administration, told AFP.
On Sunday night, Islamic militants blew up two girls’ schools in northwestern Pakistan without causing any casualties while the classrooms were empty, a source in the local administration said Monday.
Girls’ education has long been rejected by armed groups in the region, including the Taliban, who in 2012 shot Malala Yousafzai on the bus she was taking to school, because the girl was defending girls’ education.
Two years later, Malala was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The two attacks on the two schools took place on Sunday night in the villages of Hasu Khal and Gul Musaki in North Waziristan, about 30 km from the Afghan border.
“Activists placed improvised explosive devices in two public schools for girls, which exploded late at night,” Rahan Gul Khatak, a senior official in the local administration, told AFP.
He reported the destruction of six classrooms at Hasso Khan School and three classrooms at Gul Musaki School.
He added that the two attacks “were certainly the work of (Islamist) activists, but we do not yet know which group was involved in them.”
The local police official, Salim Riad, confirmed the two attacks, indicating that an “in-depth investigation” had been launched.
North Waziristan is one of the oldest semi-autonomous tribal areas in northwest Pakistan, and the Pakistani army carried out many operations against insurgents linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban after the US and NATO invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Pakistan has been witnessing a few months ago, particularly since the Taliban regained power in Kabul, a deterioration in the security situation, especially in the areas bordering Afghanistan.
Most of the attacks are carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, a group that is not affiliated with the Afghan Taliban in any organizational framework, but shares an ideology and orientation with it.
