Suspected Taliban militants blew up a girls' school in the Khyber area in Pakistan's restive North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), officials said.
They stacked explosives overnight at the government-run school in Bazgarah town, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of capital Peshawar, the officials said. Then, they detonated the stored explosives early Wednesday morning, razing all the 21 class-rooms of the school to the ground.
This was the ninth school to be blown up in the Khyber region over the past six weeks. Pro-Taliban militants in the last two years blasted more than 185 schools, mostly of girls, in the northwest, more so in the restive Swat valley, as part of their violent opposition to women's education.
Educational institutions located on the outskirts of Peshawar as well as within the city limits are under constant threat from Taliban militants, who claim girls' and co-educational schools are "un-Islamic".
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