Filed at 4:29 a.m. ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Suspected Taliban gunmen burned down a primary
school in Afghanistan’s main southern city Sunday, the latest in a spate of
attacks against teachers and institutions that educate girls.

No one was hurt in the pre-dawn attacks against the Qabail Primary School in
Kandahar, said Hayabullah Rafiqi Othak, Kandahar province’s education
director.

A group of men tied up two security guards and made bonfires of books and
wooden desks that eventually razed the whole building, he said. The school,
which was on a two-month vacation, taught some 700 boys and girls.

Dozens of schools have been burned since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban
in 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden. Most of the attacks have come at night
and have caused no deaths.

On Tuesday, however, suspected rebels beheaded the headmaster of another coed
school in the region.

The Taliban maintains that educating girls is against Islam and also opposes
government-funded schools for boys because they teach subjects besides
religion.

Othak said reconstruction of the Qabail school would start immediately and
some classes could resume when vacation ends in March.

The attack came hours guards scared away arsonists who tried to set fire to
another school in Kandahar, he said.

Five suspects were arrested in the attempted attack, said deputy provincial
police chief Abdul Hakim
Hungar.