SECOND GAS ATTACK AGAINST GIRL'S SCHOOL IN AFGHANISTAN

REUTERS:

Nearly 50 teenagers were admitted to hospital after a suspected mass poisoning at an Afghan girls' school, a doctor said Monday, in the second such incident in a month.

The headmaster rushed his students out of their classrooms in the northern town of Charikar after they smelt an unusual odor and started feeling nauseous and dizzy, a 17-year-old victim told Reuters from her hospital bed.

"I am pretty sure whoever has done this is against education for girls, but I strongly ask the parents not to be discouraged by such brutal action and send their children to school," said Noor Jahan, a ninth grader at Ura Jalili Girls' High School.

In another room a mother sat beside her unconscious daughter's bed, crying and rubbing the girl's forehead. Around her lay several dazed and pale schoolmates.

"I was in a lesson when suddenly two classmates lost consciousness and collapsed," said Nabila, a 21-year-old in one of the beds. Years of war and unrest mean children often finish school late in Afghanistan.

She said the room had filled with an odor like insecticide at around 11 a.m., and some girls started vomiting.

Police declined to comment.

THE DAILY TIMES (PAKISTAN):

More than 60 Afghan schoolgirls were admitted to hospital on Monday with symptoms of poisoning, apparently from a gas, in the second case in the same town in two weeks, officials said.

Concerned relatives crowded the hospital in the town of Charikar, about 50 kilometres north of Kabul, after the apparent mass poisoning at the Hora-i-Jalali Girls’ High School.

Sixty-one schoolgirls and a teacher were treated for symptoms such as headaches, vomiting and giddiness, said the head of the main hospital, Abdul Jalil Farhangi. Some had been discharged. “I smelt something rather good, like a perfume,” one pupil, who gave her name only as Khatera, said from her hospital bed. “I came out of the class and then I collapsed. When I opened my eyes, I was in the hospital,” said the girl, aged about 16...

Blood samples had been sent to Kabul and to the medical facility of a nearby US military base, said provincial health director Muhammad Qasim Sayedi.

THE AIM (OF AL QAEDA AND/OR THE TALIBAN) IS PROBABLY TO FRIGHTEN FAMILIES AND MAKE THEM CEASE EDUCATING THEIR DAUGHTERS.

AND/OR A RUN THROUGH FOR A SIMILAR ATTACK IN THE WEST...