Acid burnt Afghan girl vows to continue school

LANDIKOTAL :An Afghan teenager whose face was burned in an acid attack by suspected extremists vowed from her hospital bed Saturday to continue going to school even if it put her life in danger.
Men on motorbikes used a water pistol to spray acid into the faces of Shamsia and around dozen other girls as they arrived at school wearing all-covering burqas in the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday.
Shamsia, 17, was the most badly wounded and had some acid enter her eyes. She was transferred to a military hospital in Kabul where she was visited Saturday by other schoolgirls, accompanied by media.
“I will go to my school even if they kill me,” she told reporters. “My message for the enemies is that if they do this 100 times, I am still going to continue my studies.”
It is not clear who carried out the attack which President Hamid KarzaiHamid Karzai and other officials blamed on the “enemies of Afghanistan” • a broad term that most often refers to Taliban insurgents.
However a Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, told AFP by telephone his group would “never do such a cowardly thing against girls and children”.
This year around 115 schools have been set on fire, bombed or bulldozed in attacks education ministry spokesman Hamed Elmi blamed on “the opposition”.
About 120 people in the education sector have been killed in attacks, he told AFP.
Meanwhile, an Afghan religious leader was killed by alleged Taliban days after preaching against suicide and other bombings, officials said Saturday, in an attack condemned by President Hamid Karzai.
The head of the religious council for Anar Dara district in the western province of Farah was found dead on Friday, days after he had been kidnapped, an official in the governor’s office said.(AFP)