Battery acid was thrown at the girls while they were walking to school

— A 23-year-old teacher burned in an acid attackon 15 schoolgirls and instructors.

Kandahar province is the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic militiamen who ruled
Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and are now waging an insurgency against Karzai. The area is one of
Afghanistan's most conservative, a place where women rarely venture far from home.

Islamic extremists have attacked many schools to discourage girls from getting an education.
Raufi, the governor, said students at the Mirwais Mena girls school didn't return to class for three days after the .

Girls were banned from schools under hardline Taliban rule, and women could leave their homes
only if they were clad in a body-hiding burqa and accompanied by a male relative.

"Guilty" of going to school, five female Afghan students have been splashed with acid in Kandahar,
in southern Afghanistan. In the area with the greatest presence of the Taliban, the incident clearly
seems to be an attempt to intimidate all girls, who under the regime of the Koranic scholars were strictly prohibited from studying.