Malaysian PM Holds Separate Talks With Pakistan & Taliban Prime Ministers

Sharafat Zaman, spokesman for the Taliban’s public health ministry, said the total death toll from the attack had reached 411, with 263 others injured.

He added that dozens of families have approached Taliban authorities searching for the bodies of relatives, but many remain missing.

The Taliban have buried dozens of victims in mass graves in Sarai Shamali in two stages.

The United Nations has confirmed 143 deaths in the attack.

Pakistani warplanes struck at least nine targets in Kabul and Nangarhar on the night of March 16. The Omid drug treatment center in eastern Kabul caught fire following the strike.

Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, described the incident as a precision operation, saying terrorist facilities and support infrastructure were targeted.

Reports indicate that Taliban military facilities were located near the treatment center.

Pakistan has been accused of failing to observe the principle of proportionality in the strike. International humanitarian law requires parties to a conflict to adhere to proportionality in their attacks.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said on Thursday, March 26, that Islamabad had restarted Operation Ghazab-il-Haq, describing it as a targeted campaign.

He said the temporary ceasefire for Eid al-Fitr had come to an end.

Pakistan launched the operation on the night of February 26, saying its forces were responding to militant attacks and what it called provocative actions by the Taliban, including alleged support for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

The Taliban and Pakistan had agreed to a ceasefire after weeks of clashes, with mediation by Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and Qatar.

During Eid, the Taliban accused Pakistan of violating the ceasefire.

Pakistan said the operation is targeting militant infrastructure and hideouts in Afghanistan. The Taliban have denied the accusations, insisting no group uses Afghan soil to launch attacks against other countries.

UNICEF’s regional director for South Asia, Sanjay Wijesekera, said on Thursday that the time has come to reopen schools to girls in Afghanistan.

In a post on X, he wrote that Afghan girls have waited too long and that reopening schools should bring hope to all.

He said hope, dignity and the future begin with education.

Tajudeen Oyewale, UNICEF’s representative in Afghanistan, also said on X that every girl in the country has the right to go to school.

He added that when girls are educated, communities become stronger and the future is brighter for everyone.

Richard Lindsay, the UK’s special envoy for Afghanistan, said excluding women and girls from education harms the country’s future and that education must be accessible to all.

The Italian embassy for Afghanistan said it hopes the new school year will bring a time when all girls can return to classrooms.

UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, also said in recent days that the country is once again starting a school year while girls above sixth grade remain barred from education and women are excluded from universities. He called for an end to these restrictions.

The Taliban began the new academic year on Thursday, March 26, without reopening secondary schools for girls.

Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls above primary level are not allowed to receive an education.

In a statement marking the start of the 1405 academic year, the ministry outlined its priorities but remained silent on the fate of girls above sixth grade, who have been barred from attending school.

The Taliban closed girls’ secondary schools on March 22, 2022. Since then, millions of students have been denied education, a basic human right.

Despite widespread domestic and international criticism, as well as reported tensions within the group, the Taliban have shown no sign of reopening girls’ secondary schools.

The ministry said the new academic year had begun in a secure environment and that it planned to provide healthy, standardised and balanced education for students.

According to the statement, its main priorities include restructuring the ministry, holding seminars and workshops to build the capacity of teachers and staff, reopening boarding schools in some areas, constructing and repairing school buildings, conducting standardised exams and facilitating the establishment of private educational centres.

The Taliban’s Education Ministry also said that hundreds of previously inactive schools were reopened last year and that 426 boarding madrassas were established and made operational across all 34 provinces.

Girls’ schools above sixth grade remained closed for a fifth consecutive year under Taliban orders, and the group made no mention of girls’ exclusion from education at the start of the new academic year.

The new school year began in the presence of senior Taliban officials, including the Taliban deputy prime minister for administrative affairs, as well as officials from the ministries of education, information and culture, and other departments under the group’s administration.

The Taliban’s education minister did not attend the opening ceremony.

Noorulhaq Anwar, head of the Taliban’s Administrative Affairs Office, claimed during the ceremony that the curriculum under the previous government had been imported from abroad. He said that curriculum had failed to meet the country’s needs.

The Taliban official added that work on a new curriculum is under way under the Taliban administration and that efforts are being made to design it “based on needs”.

Since returning to power, the Taliban have extensively reshaped Afghanistan’s school and university curricula in line with their strict religious interpretation, raising concerns among Afghans about the spread of extremism and the future of their children.

The new school year began as protests continued over the closure of schools and universities to girls more than four years after the Taliban returned to power.

While schools and universities remain closed to girls, the Taliban have expanded the construction of religious schools

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said earlier that more than 20,000 religious seminaries are operating under the Ministry of Education. According to him, about 2.5 million students are studying Islamic subjects in those schools.

Former President Hamid Karzai has called for schools and universities to be reopened to girls and for job opportunities to be created for women. He again warned that the continuation of these bans could have irreversible consequences for the country.