2nd girls’ school blown up in South Waziristan within month

PESHAWAR: An under construction girls’ school was blown up by the suspected militants in the village of Dabkot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s South Waziristan, police said on Friday.

The attack occurred in the South Waziristan district near the Afghan border. It was the second incident this month, following significant damage to another school in the area, according to district police spokesman Habib Islam.

The overnight attack damaged one room of the school, but fortunately, no one was injured.

While no group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, who have a history of targeting girls’ schools in the province. A police officer from Wana noted that the school management had received multiple threats in the past.

On May 9, unidentified militants destroyed a girls’ school on the outskirts of Miran Shah city in neighboring North Waziristan, prompting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to order the immediate reconstruction of the facility.

Last May, two girls’ schools were also destroyed in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan.