| Suspected Taliban dragged a schoolteacher out of a mosque in Afghanistan and cut off his ears as a 'punishment' for working for the government, an education official said. The Taliban took another dozen people, most of them elderly men, out of the mosque in the Zabul province and beat them up on similar charges, provincial education chief Muhammad Nabi Khushal said. The men had burst into the mosque while dozens of worshippers were in a late night prayer session Saturday and singled out primary school teacher Bismillah Khan, Khushal said, blaming the Taliban. |