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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan-Hina Khan(picture left) used to take her life in her hands every morning just to get to school.When she stepped outside her door, the 14-year-old knew that ahead could be suicide bombings, gunfights, kidnappings and beheadings. Death threats were made against her, other students and teachers every day simply because they went to a girls' school in Pakistan targeted by Taliban militants."They said don't send your girls to school," Hina told CNN.She used to live in the Swat Valley, a scenic mountainous region once popular with tourists and dubbed "Pakistan's Switzerland."But those were the days before militants moved in, "striking the fear of God" into residents with violence as they pushed for compliance with stricter moral and religious standards-so-called Talibanization.Now she is safer, 100 miles away in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad,but her thoughts are often with her friends in Swat,near the border with Afghanistan. They do not even go to school now, as authorities gave in to militant demands to shut all girls' schools. As many as 200 schools, mostly for girls, have been destroyed since November 2007 when the Taliban began their campaign to take control of the Swat Valley and surrounding areas."They have problems there," Hina said of those left behind."How can they leave their land, their home? Why come here? Here it's expensive, and they are all poor. They can't come here. And I feel really bad. All my friends are there. There is no one here."The targeting of girls' schools shows an anti-women bias by the militants, who advocate an extreme following of a version of Islamic law, according to Islamabad-based human rights activist Tahira Abdullah.She adds it's almost as if the Taliban does not want women to exist."And if they do exist, they need to be within the four walls of their house compound; they need to be veiled," she said.Abdullah is blunt in her assessment of the situation."Right now,Swat Valleyis under the control of the Taliban," she said. "They are knocking on the doors of Peshawar, and I have no doubt they will be knocking on the doors of Islamabad if the government continues the complacency they are showing right now."....By Zein Basravi
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