Taliban threat keeps 300000 kids out of school

No child left unbombed.

Wouldn't it be nice if the teacher's unions in the US would take up the Afghan schools as a project? As if. They're too busy bellyaching about their health care and bashing George Bush to count their blessings and reach out to the Afghanis.

KABUL: A resurgent Taliban insurgency is keeping about 300,000 children from school in southern Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai told parliamentarians at the opening of a new legislative session Monday. This compared with 200,000 forced out of schools due to Taliban unrest last year, Karzai said at the start of the third working year of the post-Taliban parliament.

"The enemies of the country want schools to be closed in our country and our children deprived of education," Karzai said. "They do this with more force in the south and southwest.... Unfortunately, around 300,000 children can`t go to school from the fear of the terrorists," he said.

The Taliban -- in government between 1996 and 2001 -- carry out a range of attacks, including on schools and education workers, as part of an insurgency that has grown, in particular over the past two years.

In more stable areas, a million children were freshly admitted to schools this year, Karzai said. About 40 percent were girls. The president promised to intensify efforts to get children back in school.

An education official told foreign news agency in September that since 2005, more than 110 teachers, students and other education workers have been killed, most of them in southern Afghanistan and in Taliban-linked attacks.