10 Taliban arrested for acid attack

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Nov. 25 (UPI) -- Ten Taliban militants have been arrested in connection with an acid attack on Afghanistan schoolgirls, officials said Tuesday.

Rahmatullah Raufi, the governor of Kandahar province, where the Nov. 12 attack occurred, told CNN the militants confessed to spraying acid on the girls, blinding at least two of them.

Raufi said the suspects admitted being paid $1,265 by high-ranking Taliban officials in Pakistan to cross into Afghanistan and carry out the acid attacks, CNN reported.

Saying the attackers were "enemies of education," Kandahar government spokesman Parwaz Ayoubi told the broadcaster the extent of the injuries to the girls was unclear, saying that six were burned, one of them severely.

Girls were forbidden from attending school under the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.