Afghanistan Times
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By Mansoor Faizy
Taliban blow up school, clinic in Kunar
There is hardly a place they didn’t attack. To start from mosques to hospitals, from marriage halls to graveyards, from schools and clinics to markets, from roads to houses, from military barracks to foreign forces installations, there is hardly any place spared. This time the Taliban targeted a school and a clinic in Kunar province.
Officials said that the incidents occurred overnight in Sao and Shergal localities. The school building has been reduced to rubbles when the Taliban bombed. The clinic was also damaged in a similar act in Shergal area however no casualties reported. The Taliban took away some equipments and carpets of the clinic. By blowing the school up, over 250 schoolgirls have been deprived from access to education. What they have been doing in the country for the past 14 years cannot make them true representatives rather they are damned by general public. They claim to be adherents of a religion that has always laid stress on education as the very first revelation of God to the messenger of Islam was “Iqra—that means read.” But contrary to it the Taliban want to shut the doors of reading on people. They stand opposite to any sign of education and change. Since many people believe that the Taliban don’t have any agenda on their own rather they are dancing to the tunes of their masters. Would the Taliban be available for comments why did they target the clinic? What is their logic? Are they against health services as well? Shutting doors of clinic and health services centers on people is as if pushing them into death. Therefore, the Taliban don’t deserve to be called representatives or armed political opposition. They are domestic terrorists if not international. This is not the first ever time the Taliban aimed at a school or a clinic however this is something repeated again and again. But the problem is where the writ of the government is? Providing a safe environment for children is the duty of the government. What is more worth lament is it is the second incident of the same nature taking place in the eastern provinces within two weeks. Back in January, armed men attacked two schools in Haska Mina district of eastern Nangarhar province.
Nangarhar officials said that school watchmen was tied up by insurgents and blown up the school with bombs. Currently the entire country is passing through a tightrope. There is a government that cannot be toppled by the Taliban but there are the Taliban who cannot be subdued also therefore it means more bloodshed of civilians. When the Taliban cannot topple the government and when the government cannot defeat the Taliban, why a third way shouldn’t be tried—that’s taking the road of peace talks. But again there is a problem. And that’s are the Taliban worth talking to?
