'Mass illness' hits Afghan schoolgirls in Kunduz

Scores of schoolgirls in the Afghan province of Kunduz have fallen ill over the past week, in what authorities allege is mass poisoning by insurgents.

On Sunday, 13 girls were taken ill. This follows two separate incidents earlier in the week when about 70 girls complained of dizziness and nausea.

An inquiry has already begun, health officials told the BBC.

The Taliban - which oppposes female education - denies carrying out an attack, the Reuters news agency says.

The girls said they noticed a strange smell in class before the onset of their symptoms, but health officials said the gas remains unidentified.

None of the symptoms experienced by the girls are reported to to be serious.

The incidents all involved different schools.

In May 2009, Afghan authorities launched an investigation after about 90 schoolgirls fell ill in Kapisa province.

Although officials suspected deliberate poisoning, the results of the inquiry were inconclusive.

In recent years there has been an increase in attacks on schoolgirls in Afghanistan, mainly in the south and east of the country where several acid attacks on schoolgirls have been reported.

Girls were banned from attending school during the rule of the Taliban, who were overthrown in the American-led invasion of 2001.

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Commentary

The daughter of the Prophet of Islam was known to be a teacher of a girls school, and the Prophet would have seen her teaching her young students.

This inherent contradiction between Religion and the Taliban is not the first. The Taliban hold no banner but their own. They do not follow a religion because none condone their actions.

They merely use the power of religion to incite fear and submission in people.

If one truly had time they could state 100 ways in which the Taliban break the code of Islam.
Mentioning the contradiction of instructing girls and allowing girls to go to school, should suffice for now.

For 1,400 years Girls were being educated by Muslims, one of those teachers being the Daughter of the Prophet. The Taliban will never be able to erase that strong a proof of history.