KABUL, Afghanistan?A mortar shell tore through the roof of an eastern Afghan village school Thursday as boys studied, killing one child and injuring dozens, the government said.
The mortar attack hit a government-run boys school in Sarobi, 40 miles east of Kabul, Interior Ministry official Mohammed Azimi said in Kabul.
Family members told hospital workers the blast ripped through the ceiling of a classroom where about 35 boys were studying, said Rossella Miccio, administrator in the Kabul hospital where 19 of the injured were treated.
It was unclear whether the shell had targeted the school or strayed.
The area, under the control of a notorious warlord, was the site of the murder in November of four international journalists.
Amid the violence, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged an extension of the mandate for the British-led peacekeeping force past summer?saying too quick an exit risks chaos for Afghanistan.
In Kabul, British peacekeepers reported coming under fire for the third time in two weeks. No injuries were reported, even though rounds came close enough to leave a bullet hole in the roof of the observation post.
International investigators were searching for motives and culprits in Wednesday night’s firing upon peacekeepers. The lone gunman got away, but only after drawing return fire from the British.
“One gunman was seen firing, and then he was seen running away, and then he fired again,” Graham Dunlop, spokesman for the international force, said.
The shooting, like one on Feb. 20, occurred near the rocket ruined Darulaman palace, a former residence of Afghanistan’s royalty.
The most serious shooting involving peacekeepers here occurred Feb. 16, when British soldiers fired on a vehicle taking a pregnant woman to the hospital after curfew. The woman’s brother-in-law was killed.
The peacekeepers, two of which returned to Great Britain, said then they were returning fire. The woman denied their claim, and Afghanistan’s interim administration is investigating.
The British lead an 18 country force of 4,500 peacekeepers in Kabul aimed at providing security in the capital, shattered by two decades of relentless war.
The United Nations is expected to decide by April whether to extend the peacekeeping force’s mandate past June.
Annan told German lawmakers in Berlin that an extension should be approved to help “a sustainable peace.”
French President Jacques Chirac, meeting Karzai in Paris, said he favors the extension but opposes deploying peacekeepers outside Kabul, to which they are currently limited.
Karzai has repeatedly asked the United Nations and Western powers to do so, saying it would help bring stability.
In northern Afghanistan, meanwhile, tensions between two rival commanders underscored the difficulties facing the loosely glued together government alliance.
Ethnic Tajik leader Atta Mohammed accused rival Gen. Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek, of sending six tanks and dozens of troops into Shulgara, 50 miles southwest of the main northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Sporadic fighting between soldiers under the control of the two leaders has killed dozens of people in recent weeks.
Atta warned that if an agreement could not be reached on recalling Dostum’s troops, he may attack to force them back.
Earlier this week, Atta and one of Dostum’s senior lieutenants signed a peace agreement in another northwestern village where fighting the week before killed at least six people.