KABUL, June 5 (Reuters) - Around 60 Afghan girls were hospitalisd after being poisoned at their school in nothern Afghanistan, police said on Monday. The poisoning, which targeted a girls' school in the Afghan province of Sar-e Pol, comes after intense scrutiny of girls' education in the war-torn nation since the Taliban took over and barred most teenage female students and after a wave of poison attacks on girls' schools in neighbouring Iran. "Some unknown people entered a girls' ... school in Sancharak District .. and poisoned the classes, when the girls come to classes they got poisoned," said Den Mohammad Nazari, Sar-e-Pol's police spokesperson, without elaborating on which substance was used or who was thought to be behind the incident. In neighbouring Iran, poiosoning incidents at girls' schools sickened an estimated 13,000 mostly female students since November. During Afghanistan's previous foreign-backed government, several poisoning attacks, including suspected gas attacks, on girls' schools had taken place.

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Persons: Den Mohammad Nazari, Nazari, Mohammad Yunus Yawar, Charlotte Greenfield, Stephen Coates Organizations: Thomson Locations: KABUL, nothern Afghanistan, Afghan, Sar, Iran, Sancharak District