Last updated at 17:21 14 May 2008

A teacher was shot to death in northern Afghanistan after he gave a speech condemning suicide bombings, it was revealed today.

Abdul Hadi claimed the attacks were un-Islamic and un-Afghan during a speech yesterday in the Archi district of Kunduz province.

He spoke at a gathering of about 700 people, including the Kunduz governor, and was on his way home when he was killed, Khair Mohammad Subat said.

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Kunduz police chief General Mohammad Ayub Salangi said police were investigating and that no arrests have been made so far.

In January, Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said the number of students and teachers killed in Taliban attacks spiked in the past year in a campaign to close schools and force teenage boys to join the Islamic militia.

According to UNICEF, there were 236 school-related attacks last year.

In central Logar province, meanwhile, education department director Kamaluddin Zadran said three girls schools have been set ablaze in the past three weeks.

Girls were barred from schools under the Taliban regime.

After the Taliban fell in 2001, girls were allowed to return to attend, but many conservative and uneducated Afghans still forbid their girls from going.

Arsonists regularly attack girls schools. Last year, gunmen killed two students walking outside a girls school in Logar.

Education Ministry statistics indicate only 35 per cent of students enrolled are girls.