The Religion of Peace™ is doing everything it can to prevent Afghan children from learning to think for themselves: Attacks on Afghan schools escalate. (Hat tip: M. Simon.)

SHEIK MOHAMMADI, Afghanistan — The men showed up at the end of the party celebrating the new school. They broke the windows, ripped the vitamins poster in half, tore the skeleton system off the wall. They set fire to biscuits and books.

Abdul Bari Rohani hid his ID badge under a mattress. But the men found it.

“They looked at my identification card and said, `Who is this headmaster, this Abdul Bari, son of George W. Bush? We are looking for him,’ ” said Rohani, who managed to escape detection.

During the Taliban regime, Afghan girls were not allowed to go to school, and boys were educated in Islam. When the Taliban fell 18 months ago and schools opened their doors to all children, not everyone supported such equality. Last fall, schools for girls in Wardak province, near Kabul, were attacked.

Boys’ schools had been safe. But in the past two months in Kandahar province, a former Taliban stronghold, seven of the schools were attacked and burned, including the one in Sheik Mohammadi, about six miles south of Kandahar. The schools have been accused of teaching Western thought and relying on Western money.

Such incidents are part of an increasing number of attacks in southern Afghanistan not only on Westerners but also on Afghans in recent months. The attackers are masked men with causes reminiscent of the Taliban. They call for more restrictions and seek to destabilize the central government.

At many of the boys’ schools and the nearby villages the men left leaflets claiming to be from the Jamiat Jehash Moslemein, or Muslim Gathering Movement, warning people working with the Afghan or U.S. government to quit for their own safety.

The leaflets say Muslims should not get into government cars, or visit any government worker injured in a mine blast, or go to dog fights. Girls and women should not go to school. All Muslims should stay off roads used by government cars and stay away from places where foreigners go, such as hotels.

Ah, the Dark Ages—those were the days!