Militants behead Afghan teacher to make point

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – Militants broke into the home of an Afghan headmaster and beheaded him while forcing his wife and eight children to watch, the latest in a spate of attacks blamed on the Taliban that have forced many schools to close.

The insurgents claim that educating girls is against Islam and they oppose government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects besides religion.

Four armed men stabbed Malim Abdul Habib, 45, eight times before decapitating him in the courtyard of his home in the town of Qalat late Tuesday, according to provincial government spokesman Ali Khail.

Habib was slain after he refused to go with the militants to meet their commander, said Esanullah, who like many Afghans uses one name.

The assailants made Habib’s wife and four sons and four daughters, age 2 to 22, watch but did not hurt them physically, Khail said.

Habib was the headmaster and a teacher at Shaikh Mathi Baba high school, attended by 1,300 boys and girls. It is in Zabul, a remote mountainous province populated mainly by Pashtuns and bordering Pakistan that is a hotbed of Taliban militancy.

Cleric Sayed Omer Munib, a member of Afghanistan’s top Islamic council, said there was nothing in Islam that prevents girls from studying.

“Nowhere in the Quran does it say that girls do not have the right to education,” he said. “It says that ‘people should be educated.’ This means girls too.”