Taliban bans all education for girls, fires female teachers, bans women from mosques

The Taliban on Wednesday banned girls of all ages from attending school in one of the largest blows to women's rights since taking over Afghanistan last year with the U.S. withdrawal. 

Taliban officials made a range of sweeping announcements restricting women during a meeting in Kabul with school directors, community representatives and clerics, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Female staff, including teachers, are now prohibited from working in schools, authorities said, taking away one of the few professions women were able to have in Afghanistan.

Women are also barred from visiting mosques or attending religious seminaries, officials also announced at the meeting.

Kabul shopkeeper Ghulam Sarwar Haidari told the Journal that his fifth-grade daughter Mahbooba was sent home when she arrived for classes at a tutoring center. 

"My daughter has locked herself in a room since this morning and won’t stop crying," said Haidari, whose daughter wanted to become a doctor. "All her hopes are broken. We are tired to death of this situation, and only wonder when it will be over."

Attendees at the meeting said the Taliban claimed the ban on girls' education would be temporary, and the Taliban did not make an official announcement about it.

When the fundamentalist group was last in power in the 1990s, they said the ban on girls' schooling was temporary, but the ban was never lifted. 

The Taliban's newest regulations come one day after the radicalist group suspended classes until further notice for university women in Afghanistan.

The restrictions on education for women have been met with international condemnation, including from the United States, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia.