In a rare incident of armed public uprising against Taliban in Andar district of Ghazni, eleven militants have been killed by villagers and 15 others are held hostage. District Chief of Andar has confirmed to media that militants were resisted by locals in Painda Muhammad and Ibrahimkhel villages. A villager was killed and three children are injured. The Provincial Governor Musa Khan Akbarzada has said 11 militants are killed and 15 others held hostage. He has offered to send police to the areas where locals request.

Such local resistance to Taliban is unusual due to the strongholds of militants in Ghazni and other southern provinces. However, the patience and compromise of local Afghan civilians does not equate with support and sympathy for Taliban.

Previously there has been local resistance against militants wherever people have been forced to follow their line. But under a strategy to oppress locals and threaten them, Taliban have used a brutal tactic of extreme violence against those few who dare to stand against their imposition of rule by the force of gun.

The resistance in Andar is an example when locals' run out of patience. The reaction is against closure of schools. An elder from the district has said they will not allow Taliban to close down schools.

Recently Taliban have launched a campaign against schools in some southern and southeastern provinces. Last month, militants in Ghazni threatened all schools in the provincial capital to be closed down. Over 30 schools, including the biggest girls' school in Ghazni located in the middle of the city close to Government buildings, have been shut down.

Insurgents have thrown threat letters and visited some schools warning of serious consequences if they remained open. Local officials in Ghazni say the move is in response to Government ban on motorcycle riding. Taliban have warned local teachers unless the ban on motorcycle-riding is lifted, schools will be attacked.

Locals cannot tolerate militant brutality beyond a limit. What the government need is to ensure high security for the villages that have stood against Taliban. Militants would certainly plan to attempt a bloody attack to suppress the local resistance and spread their fear through terror.

Unless Afghans understand that the Taliban, claiming to fight a war for independence against foreign invasion, are killing more Afghans and doing no good to the country, we will be responsible for the current miserable state of our country.