| In need of security, Kabul schools eye every student as potential bomber The Associated Press
10/16/2006
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KABUL – The 7-year-old Afghan girl wriggled off her backpack at the schoolhouse gate, where a teacher rifled through her bag, then ran her hands over the girl's scarf-covered head and patted down her shoulders, back and legs.
Jittery from scores of arson attacks on schools around the country and an increasing number of Taliban bombings in the capital, schools in Kabul have stepped up security measures. Many now pat down even the youngest girls and boys – fearing militants could use an unwitting student to carry an explosive into class. Zuhur Afghan, an Education Ministry spokesman, said that has never happened. But authorities have been unnerved by a wave of militant violence that has spread to this relatively secure city from the volatile south and east of the country.
“The wise person prevents an attack instead of reacts to it,” said Said Habib Shahamid, the director of Kabul's 650,000 students and 167 schools, who hopes an aid organization will donate handheld metal detectors. “This enemy is the most brutal enemy in the history of Afghanistan.” Shahamid and other school officials say young children could be tricked by Taliban militants into carrying a bomb or putting on a vest that could be detonated by remote control. “The searches are a good thing. The younger girls – how to say this? – they don't know very much,” said Karimullah, 54, the guard at the Maleka Suraya girls school in west Kabul. Like many people here he goes by one name. “If someone gives her something, a bomb, and says, 'Take it to school,' she will.” More than 160 schools have been attacked around Afghanistan this year, up from 146 during all of last year. Most have been nighttime arson attacks that hurt no one – a tactic aimed at undermining the reach of President Hamid Karzai's government, which reversed the fundamentalist Taliban's ban on girls' education. Between 5 million and 6 million children now attend school in Afghanistan, including some 2 million girls. Growing insecurity, particularly in the south where the Taliban are strongest, and targeted killings of teachers have whittled away at that achievement. Last month, Karzai told the U.N. General Assembly that “200,000 of our students, who went to school two years ago, are no longer able to do so.” Kabul schools have so far been spared, but the city and its children have not been. On Monday, an 11-year-old girl, Tahmina, standing in front of the Bibi Marou School near Kabul's international airport, was hurt by flying shrapnel from a nearby suicide car bombing – the latest in a rash of such attacks in the capital. The school did not appear to be the target. School directors increased security after Shahamid told a district-wide meeting of principals to boost their vigilance earlier this month. School leaders also asked police for more patrols. Students are being told not to accept packages from strangers or to pick up seemingly innocent items around school for fear they could be a bomb, and teachers no longer assemble students in one large group to sing the national anthem before class, fearing the mass gathering is too inviting a target, Shahamid said. Schools in other parts of the country also are taking strict security measures. Officials in Herat province in the west, Parwan in central Afghanistan and Khost in the east said they searched students. But the policy is not countrywide. Education officials in Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold often hit by suicide bombings, said they were not searching students. Noriya Ragheb, the principal at Maleka Suraya School, said officials used to search students once a month or so, but she instituted the daily pat-downs after the recent order to increase security. She said the searches haven't affected the mood at school. “We told the girls, 'It's good for you, it's safe for you,'” Ragheb said. “We can't guarantee nothing will happen, but we can show the enemy that at least we're trying.” Inside one of Maleka Suraya's gray-cement classrooms, where the view out the window is of overflow classroom tents, student Shayesta Sraee said she was perfectly happy to be searched. “If one of my sisters (fellow classmates) were to bring a bomb, that would be very bad,” said Shayesta, a confident 11-year-old with shiny, gold-rimmed glasses. Ragheb, the principal, said parents who have seen the searches have told her they think they are a good thing. Qassim Khan, the father of two girls – one in third grade and one in seventh – initially said he supported the searches. But he later changed his mind. “Even in the United States, you would get angry having your kids searched. We are very upset,” Khan said in his downtown Kabul carpet shop. “It's not good for the morale of the kids. It shows the weakness of our government.” “We have the international community here, more than 30 countries. They should bring security to the country,” Khan said. “Why are we searching little girls?”
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