Source: Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack

COUNTRY PROFILE for Afghanistan
Published by: Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack

The UN reported more than 1,000 attacks on education in 2009-2012, including schools being set on fire, suicide bombings and remotely detonated bombs, killings of staff, threats to staff and abductions. Given the challenges in collecting and verifying reports in Afghanistan, the true number may well be significantly higher.

Context

During 2009-2012, armed opposition groups, including the Taliban, continued to fight to regain control of the country, which they lost in 2001 to US-backed forces.

NATO assumed responsibility for security in Afghanistan from the US-led coalition in 2006. Following military setbacks, in March 2009, US President Barack Obama announced a new policy of increasing US forces there in the short term, taking the total number of foreign troops to 130,000, while agreeing to hand control of security to Afghan forces by December 2014.

By the end of 2012, the Taliban had a strong influence over areas of the south and east but also maintained pockets of control and the ability to carry out attacks in every region of the country. In 2011, the Afghan government and its international partners began efforts to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban but there was little concrete progress by mid-2013.395

In addition to the Taliban, numerous other armed anti-government groups were active, some affiliated with the Taliban and some pursuing separate agendas. The situation was further complicated by the unpredictable activities of village militias (arbakai) – some allied with or supported by the government of Afghan President Karzai and some operating independently – and the Afghan Local Police, a village-level defence force established by the Afghan government at the urging of the US to defend communities from attack.396

The Taliban and other groups have for many years attacked schools, teachers and students.397 Along with other forms of insecurity, this violence has impeded access to education and in some areas actually rolled back progress made after schools reopened in 2002. In 2009, for example, more than 70 per cent of schools in Helmand province and more than 80 per cent in Zabul province were closed.398 In May 2012, the Ministry of Education reported that more than 590 schools were closed in areas at risk, mostly in Helmand, Zabul and Kandahar provinces.399

As of 2011,400 gross primary enrolment401 was 97 per cent, gross secondary enrolment was 52 per cent and gross tertiary enrolment was 4 per cent.402 Net attendance was only 66 per cent for boys and 40 per cent for girls at primary school level, and 18 per cent for boys and 6 per cent for girls at secondary level (2007-2011).403

Attacks on schools

Types of attacks on schools included the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), landmines and suicide bombs in or around school buildings, rocket attacks, grenades thrown into school playgrounds or facilities, the burning down of buildings, looting and forced closure of schools.404

The UN reported 613 school-related attacks in January-November 2009, compared with 348 in the whole of 2008, with attacks on schools increasing in areas around Kabul and in the east, including in the provinces of Wardak, Logar, Khost, Laghman, Kunar and Nangarhar.405 For instance, unknown armed men used dynamite to blast a high school in Nadir Shahkot district of Khost province in May 2009, destroying 18 classrooms.406However, the number of incidents dropped to 197 in 2010. There were spikes in the number of attacks in September 2010, at the time of the parliamentary elections, just as there were during the 2009 presidential elections, when schools were used as polling stations.407 But the number fell to 167 in 2012. (There were at least 133 attacks on schools or school-related victims in 2011, but the UN report did not clarify how many other of the 185 incidents of attacks on schools and hospitals were attacks on schools.) 408

Anti-government groups were responsible for the ‘vast majority’ of attacks in 2012, the UN Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, verified.409 However, these groups operated both covertly and publicly, sometimes claiming responsibility for attacks and sometimes denying activities attributed to them by others, making the overall conflict – and efforts to determine the source of attacks – complex. The UN Mission also verified four attacks by armed groups that were not anti-government in 2012 and at least nine by Afghan Local Police,410 as well as one incident in which American forces ‘bombarded’ a school in Nangarhar province, injuring 12 children and a school employee and damaging the school building.411 The UN Secretary-General’s Report on Children and Armed Conflict said that among documented – as opposed to verified412 – incidents, attacks by anti-government elements outnumbered those by pro-government forces by two to one and approximately one in four attacks were by unidentified perpetrators.413 An earlier study reported that criminal gangs have also threatened or attacked schools in Afghanistan.414

Motives for attacks by armed non-state groups included opposition to the perceived ‘western’ or ‘un-Islamic’ curriculum, external affiliations of the school or the perceived role of Western forces in rebuilding some schools, the education of girls generally, or any operation of the central government.415 Other attacks were motivated by the wider political objectives of the insurgency in particular areas or the use of schools by opposing forces (see the Military use of schools section of this profile).416

In 2012, the Taliban made public statements saying it did not oppose education but only curricula that tried to supplant Islamic and national values with western culture. It also denied responsibility for attacks on schools. Nevertheless, the UN reported that attacks and threats of attack continued in areas controlled by anti-government groups, including the Taliban.417 In some places, the Taliban allowed schools to reopen, sometimes due to public opposition to their continuing closure. In these areas, there is evidence that Taliban officials sought to control the curriculum and the appointment of teachers, and place additional restrictions on girls.418 They also appointed ‘controllers’ or shadow directors who distributed Taliban directives on schools and pressed local officials to change the curriculum in line with Taliban thinking. In some cases, they checked if teachers and students were turning up to school.419

Attacks on school students, teachers and other education personnel

In addition to schools being damaged, destroyed or shut down, students, teachers and other education personnel were killed, injured, abducted and driven away from their schools. School students, teachers and other education personnel were killed or injured by the use of IEDs and suicide bombing attacks.420 Grenades were lobbed into schoolyards.421 Bombs were hidden in pushcarts and rickshaws, or carried on motorbikes.422 For instance, on 20 October 2010, at least eight children were killed when a powerful roadside bomb blasted a school bus carrying girls in the Khash Rod district of Nimrod province.423 On 3 July 2011, a suspected militant on a motorbike threw a grenade at the main gate of a school in Faryab province, wounding 17 children, two critically.424 On 3 May 2012, three students and two teachers were injured when an attacker threw a grenade into the playground of Mir Ghulam Mohmmad Ghubar High School in Kabul.425

According to UN figures, at least 24 teachers and other education personnel and 23 students were killed and 342 students and 41 teachers and education personnel were injured in attacks on education in 2009.426 In 2010, at least 21 students, teachers or education officials were killed.427 In 2011, 25 education staff members were killed and seven abducted; in one incident, six teachers were killed and one abducted, allegedly by anti-government elements.428 UNAMA recorded six instances of targeted killings of teachers, school guards and department of education officials by anti-government elements during the first six months of 2012 — an increase compared with the first six months of 2011.429 Separately reported, one of the most serious incidents in 2012 involved an ambush in May of a convoy of education officials travelling to visit schools in Paktika province. According to the police and a provincial government spokesperson, the convoy was hit by a remotely detonated roadside bomb and then came under gunfire. Five officials were killed and three others wounded.430

Threats to girl students and their teachers

Attackers frequently targeted girls’ education. ‘Night letters’ – threatening letters placed at night outside schools, en route to the school or outside teachers’ homes – were distributed in the southern, south-eastern, central and northern regions, warning entire communities not to send their daughters to school and calling on teachers and government employees to close schools, especially girls’ schools. Some letters warned that failure to comply with the demand would lead to retribution, such as acid or gas attacks.431 In another example, in 2009, a teacher at a girls’ school received a letter with Taliban insignia that forced her to quit her post: ‘We warn you to leave your job as a teacher as soon as possible otherwise we will cut the heads off your children and we shall set fire to your daughter…This is your first and last warning.’432 In some cases, the threats were carried out. In May 2011, for instance, the head teacher of Porak girls’ school, Logar province, was shot and killed near his home after receiving repeated death threats telling him not to teach girls.433

Alleged poison attacks

There were numerous allegations of mass school poisonings, either through intentional contamination of drinking water or by the release of gas into the air, including 17 such alleged incidents in the first half of 2012.434 Although no scientific evidence has been found to support these attacks, they have escalated fear and disrupted children’s access to education. For example, on 12 May 2009, at Qazaaq school, north of Kabul, five girls reportedly went into comas and almost 100 others were hospitalised, allegedly due to the release of toxic gas.435 Similar attacks were reported at other girls’ schools.436 An alleged poison attack in Kunduz city in 2010 caused 1,500 girls to miss classes at Khadeja-tul Kubra high school.437 By mid-2012, hundreds of students and education staff affected by such incidents had been treated by medical officials for symptoms such as nausea and unconsciousness.

In June 2012, Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security announced that it had arrested 15 people, including two schoolgirls, who confessed to involvement in poison attacks in Takhar province.438 However, UNAMA expressed concern that the people arrested had been tortured and that the publicizing of the confessions compromised the right to a fair trial.439

In July 2012, UNAMA reported 17 alleged poisonings, particularly targeting girls’ schools. In all cases it reviewed, however, it found no evidence of ‘deliberate acts to harm’. Testing of contaminated water by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and government departments found no evidence of toxic substances, and forensic testing of other potential sources of poison proved inconclusive.440 Preliminary WHO investigations of some cases pointed to mass hysteria as the likely cause.441

Military use of schools

Schools were also used for military purposes. The UN Secretary-General reported that international military forces used schools on five occasions in 2010,442 and that in 2011 schools were taken over 20 times by armed groups and 11 times by pro-government forces, totalling 31 incidents of military use of schools.443 In 2012, 10 schools were used for military purposes, three of them by anti-government elements and seven by pro-government forces.444

Although most occupations were temporary, local elders in Kapisa province told UNAMA in 2012 that the Afghan National Army (ANA) had used a school building for the previous four years, forcing staff to teach pupils outside.

There was also evidence that occupation of schools by security forces made the buildings a target for attack. For instance, in May 2012, after police occupied two schools in Badakhshan province, displacing the students and teachers, anti-government elements fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the school compound, damaging the building, and warned local officials that they would continue to target schools used for military purposes. In June, the forces vacated both schools.445

Attacks on higher education

Several universities were also targeted. For example, a new Islamic university, Jamiyat’al-Uloom’al-Islamiya, in Jalalabad, was badly damaged in a bomb attack on 8 February 2011, following threatening letters accusing the university and three local seminaries of ‘spreading western propaganda and poisoning the minds of the young generation in Afghanistan’.446 According to news reports, the threats and bombing caused 120 students to drop out.447

The use of suicide bombers extended to at least one university as well as to schools. On 7 February 2012, government officials reported that a blast from a suicide bomb car attack close to the entrance to Kandahar University killed at least seven people and also wounded 23.448

In another case, Sunni students attacked Shiite students at Kabul University in late November 2012 to prevent them from observing Ashura – the festival of the martyrdom of Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad – inside a dormitory mosque. Around 100 students were involved in the fighting, university buildings were damaged, one student was killed after being thrown out of a window and up to 30 were wounded.449

Attacks on education in 2013

According to the Ministry of Education, approximately 100 teachers and education officials were killed between January and August, some of them by assassination, others in roadside bombings and crossfire.450 In June, in one incident with heavy casualties, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonated his explosives close to a boys’ high school in Chamkani district, at going home time when ISAF and Afghan Local Police forces were passing, killing 10 students and injuring 15 others.451 The UN said tactics such as suicide bombings close to schools could be war crimes.452 In other incidents, UNAMA reported that a student was abducted and killed in May in Bak district, Khost province, after chanting an anti-Taliban song, and an education officer was shot and injured while visiting schools to monitor them in Kunar province in June;453 and in August, a teacher’s home in the Sangin district of Helmand province was targeted – an explosive device was set off outside the house of a teacher who had previously received threats to leave his job, killing two children.454­ Three education administrators were also shot dead in Parwan, Uruzgan and Herat provinces by unknown gunmen in August.455 Schools and universities were threatened,456 set on fire457 or used as bases for combat,458 and there were continuing reports of alleged mass poisonings of schoolgirls,459 although there was no verification of whether poisoning took place.

In May, the Taliban forced schools in Zabul province to close after the local government banned motorcycles as a security measure because they were being used in assassinations.460

Endnotes:

395 “Afghanistan Profile,” BBC News, 13 March 2013.

396 “Security and Aid Work in Militia-Controlled Afghanistan,” Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), 5 April 2013.

397 See, for example: HRW, Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan (New York: HRW, July 2006); and Marit Glad, Knowledge on Fire: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan – Risks and Measures for Successful Mitigation (Afghanistan: CARE International, September 2009).

398 United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Afghanistan Annual Report 2009 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, January 2010), 4.

399 UNAMA and Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Afghanistan Mid-Year Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, July 2012), 33.

400 As stated in the methodology section, the statistical information on enrollment and literacy rates in profiled countries should be treated with caution, especially in the case of those countries that have experienced considerable disruption due to armed conflict, insecurity or instability. Though formally correct, such statistical data may contain outdated information and may not capture with full accuracy the actual educational situation of a country.

401 The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) indicates the number of students enroled in a particular level of education regardless of age, expressed as a percentage of the population at the official age for a given level. It is therefore often a much higher figure than the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), which represents the percentage of students enrolled at a particular level who actually belong to the official age group for that level. This study cites NER whenever possible, but for some countries and levels of education, GER is the only available figure and has therefore had to be used instead.

402 UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS), “Education (all levels) Profile – Afghanistan,” UIS Statistics in Brief (2011).

403 “Statistics – Afghanistan,” UNICEF, accessed on 26 December 2013.

404 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/66/782–S/2012/261, 26 April 2012, para 16; and UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Bulletin 2009 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, July 2009), 8; “Kabul,” Pajhwok Afghan News, 3 May 2012.

405 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/64/742–S/2010/81, 13 April 2010, para 50.

406 “Militants blast clinic, school in E Afghanistan,” Xinhua, 2 May 2009.

407 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/65/820–S/2011/250, 23 April 2011, paras 57 and 178.

408 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Annual Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, February 2013), 57; and UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/67/845–S/2013/245, 15 May 2013, para 31; UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/66/782–S/2012/261, 26 April 2012, para 16.

409 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Annual Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, February 2013), 57.

410 Ibid., 57.

411 Ibid., 67.

412 ‘Documented’ means reported and put on file; ‘verified’ means independently assessed for reliability, e.g. visits to the location, interviews with victims, cross-checking with other information.

413 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/67/845–S/2013/245, 15 May 2013, para 31.

414 Marit Glad, Knowledge on Fire: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan – Risks and Measures for Successful Mitigation (Afghanistan: CARE International, September 2009), 1.

415 Ibid., 9, 35, and 36; Antonio Giusto i and Claudio Franco, The battle for the schools: “The Taleban and state education (Afghanistan Analysts Network, August 2011), 7, 15; and Antonio Giusto i and Claudio Franco, The ongoing battle for schools: Uprisings, negotiations and Taleban tactics (Afghanistan Analysts Network, 10 June 2013), 12, 15.

416 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, July 2012), 31.

417 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Annual Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, February 2013), 57-58; UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/67/845–S/2013/245, 15 May 2013, para 31; and Graham Bowley, “Taliban Kill 5 Education Officials Near Border,” New York Times, 8 May 2012.

418 Antonio Giusto i and Claudio Franco, The Ongoing Battle for the Schools. Uprisings, Negotiations and Taleban Tactics (Afghanistan Analysts Network, 10 June 2013). This was also confirmed by several INGOs in Kabul during interviews with Brendan O’Malley, September 2012.

419 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and UNHCR, February 2013), 58. This was also confirmed by several INGOs in Kabul during interviews with Brendan O’Malley, September 2012.

420 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Bulletin on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2009 (UNAMA, July 2009), 8.

421 Haseeb Muslih, picture caption, Pajhwok Afghan News, 3 May 2012, http://www.pajhwok.com/en/photo/177438.

422 “Two blasts rock Afghanistan in weekend violence,” The Hindu, 20 June 2010; “Six children die in Afghan bomb blast,” BBC News, 2 August 2010.

423 “Bomb hits Afghan school bus, kills at least 9,” Reuters, 20 October 2010.

424 Agence France-Presse, “Grenade Wounds 17 Afghan Schoolchildren,” Relief Web, 3 July 2011; AFP, “Afghanistan: 17 children wounded in grenade attack on school,” NDTV, 3 July 2011.

425 Haseeb Muslih, picture caption, Pajhwok Afghan News, 3 May 2012, http://www.pajhwok.com/en/photo/177438.

426 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/64/742 S/2010/181, 13 April 2010, para 50.

427 UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report 2010 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, March 2011), 12.

428 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/66/782–S/2012/261, 26 April 2012, para 16; UNAMA, Afghanistan Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2011, 38.

429 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Bulletin on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2012 (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and UNHCR, July 2012), 32.

430 Graham Bowley, “Taliban Kill 5 Afghan Education Officials Near Border,” New York Times, 8 May 2012.

431 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report 2010 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, August 2010), 10; and Spiegel Online International, “Closures after Taliban threats: German Army can’t protect Afghan girls’ schools,” 18 May 2009.

432 HRW, The 10-Dollar Talib and Women’s Rights: Afghan Women and the Risks of Reintegration and Reconciliation (New York: HRW, July 2010), 12.

433 “Taliban Kill Afghan Girls’ School Headmaster,” Thomson Reuters, 25 May 2011.

434 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Mid-Year Bulletin 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, July 2012), 31

435 Hamid Shalizi, “Scores of Afghan Girls Ill in Third School Poisoning,” Reuters, 12 May 2009

436 “94 More Afghan Schoolgirls Reportedly Poisoned in Sar-i-Pul,” Threat Matrix, 24 June 2012; Zabihullah Ehsas, “Schoolgirls, Teachers Poisoned in Sar-i¬Pul,” Pajwok Afghan News, 9 June 2010; and “17 Takhar Schoolgirls Ill after ‘Gas Attack’,” Pajwok Afghan News, 18 April 2013.

437 School Safety Partners, “Over 80 Afghan School Girls Fall Ill in Suspected Gas Poisoning,” 25 April 2010.

438 “Afghan Arsonists Seek to Enforce Truancy from School,” Thomson Reuters, 10 June 2012.439 Ali M Latifi, “Torture alleged in Afghan poisoning arrests,” Al Jazeera, 12 July 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/07/2012711105356413268.html

439 Ali M Latifi, “Torture alleged in Afghan poisoning arrests,” Al Jazeera, 12 July 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/07/2012711105356413268.html

440 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Mid-Year Bulletin 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, July 2012), 31.

441 World Health Organisation, “Mass Psychogenic Illness in Afghanistan,” Weekly Epidemiological Monitor, Volume 5, Issue 22, 27 May 2012; HRW, World Report 2013: Afghanistan (New York: HRW, 2013); and Ben Farmer, “Poisonings’ at Afghan girls’ schools likely mass hysteria – not Taliban, says report,” The Telegraph, 2 June 2012.

442 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/65/820–S/2011/250, 23 April 2011, para 57.

443 UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/66/782–S/2012/261, 26 April 2012, para 16.

444 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Annual Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, February 2013); and UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/67/845–S/2013/245, 15 May 2013, para 31.

445 UNAMA and OHCHR, Afghanistan Annual Report 2012 on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (Kabul Afghanistan: UNAMA and OHCHR, February 2013), 57; and UNSC, Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, A/67/845–S/2013/245, 15 May 2013.

446 Jon Boone, “Afghan Insurgents Target Moderate Islamic University,” The Guardian, 9 February 2011; and “Afghanistan’s Jalalabad University ‘Hit by Bomb Attack’,” BBC News, 9 February 2011.

447 Jon Boone, “Afghan Insurgents Target Moderate Islamic University,” The Guardian, 9 February 2011; and “Afghanistan’s Jalalabad University ‘Hit by Bomb Attack’,” BBC News, 9 February 2011.

448 Rahim Faiez, “Afghanistan War: Suicide Attack Kills 7 Outside Kandahar University,” Huffington Post, 7 February 2012.

449 “Kabul Closes Universities after Sectarian Clashes,” Radio Free Europe, 25 November 2012; Azam Ahmed, “Student killed in melee at Afghan university,” New York Times, 24 November 2012; and Borhan Osman, “AAN reportage: what sparked the Ashura Day riots and murder in Kabul University?” 17 January 2013.

450 Ghanizada, “100 teachers and education officials killed in Afghanistan: MOE,” Khaama, 10 August 2013.

451 Bill Roggio, “Suicide bomber kills 10 Afghan students, 2 US soldiers,” The Long War Journal, 3 June 2013; “Afghan school children killed in blast,” Al Jazeera, 3 June 2013; Kay Johnson, “Afghanistan suicide bombing: insurgent attacks US patrol outside busy market, killing 9 schoolchildren,” Huffington Post, 6 June 2013; and Sardar Ahmad, “10 children killed in Afghan suicide attack near school,” AFP, 3 June 2013.

452 Kay Johnson, “Afghanistan suicide bombing: insurgent attacks US patrol outside busy market, killing 9 schoolchildren,” Huffington Post, 6 June 2013.

453 “IED attack kills two children in Afghanistan’s Helmand,” IHS Jane’s Terrorism Watch Report – Daily Update, 27 August 2013.

454 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 2013 (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, July 2013), 21.

455 Ghanizada, “100 teachers and education officials killed in Afghanistan: MOE,” Khaama, 10 August 2013.

456 “US led forces bomb religious school in Afghanistan,” Press TV, 21 April 2013;Az am Ahmed and Jawad Sukhanyar, “Deadly Kabul bombing sends message on security pact vote,” New York Times, 16 November 2013; and “Security forces foil major attack on school in southern Afghanistan,” Press TV, 27 August 2013.

457 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 2013 (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, July 2013), 66.

458 UNAMA interview with village elders from Qush Tepa district, Sheberghan city, 22 May 2013, in UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 2013 (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, 30 June 2013), 35.

459 “Up to 74 school girls hit by gas attack in Afghanistan,” RTE News, 21 April 2013.

460 UNAMA, Afghanistan Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: 2013 (Kabul, Afghanistan: UNAMA, July 2013), 66-7.