Militants Target Girls' School with IED in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Peshawar, Jul 11 (PTI) - Unknown militants have targeted an under-construction government primary school for girls in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with an IED blast, according to police reports on Friday. The explosion occurred at the Azaan Javed Primary School, situated in the Baka Khel police jurisdiction of Bannu district.

No casualties have been reported as the premises were unoccupied during the blast. However, the powerful explosion caused significant structural damage to the building.

An investigation has been launched with an FIR registered, and forensic teams have been dispatched to gather evidence from the site of the blast.

Officials have strongly condemned the attack, viewing it as a deliberate attempt to hinder educational progress in the region. This incident is part of a troubling pattern; a report by the Lowy Institute, an esteemed Australian think tank, highlights that over 1,100 girls’ schools in the tribal areas have been destroyed between 2007 and 2017, with educators and young students often caught in the crossfire.

Before a comprehensive military operation by Pakistan’s security forces in 2014, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had a history of orchestrating numerous assaults on girls’ schools across both the tribal regions and settled districts of the northwestern province, operating primarily from the Swat district.

In the wake of this crackdown, many TTP militants sought refuge in Afghanistan, launching cross-border attacks from these new positions. Their efforts have intensified following the Taliban's takeover of Kabul, emboldening the TTP in its quest to reclaim former strongholds in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Since the Afghan Taliban's ascent in 2021, they have imposed strict bans on girls attending school beyond the sixth grade and have also barred women from universities. The Pakistani Taliban, ideologically aligned with their Afghan counterparts, seek to implement a similar agenda in Pakistan’s tribal areas through coercion.

This backdrop echoes the story of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate from Swat district, who was infamously shot in the face by TTP gunmen in 2012 at the age of 14 because she advocated for girls' education.

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