Perhaps the most important clue to the attack is that a religious instructor at the school, Mohammed Nawab, is missing. The explosives were hidden in Nawab's motorbike, which was parked in the schoolyard. Nawab has been missing since the day of the attack, raising official and private speculation that he was either kidnapped by the bombers or part of their plot.
Three days after the blast, the twisted wreck of the motorbike still stood in the yard. The earthen perimeter of the compound had crumbled in several places; the roof and one wall of Gul's classroom were gone.
On a wall that was still standing was his blackboard with a few chalk marks and a torn map of the world.
Outside, in the village plaza, boys with bandages on their heads and arms swarmed around a visiting unit of U.S. Marines, who had arrived from a military post in the provincial capital, Gardez, to dress their wounds and hand out toys. Last Saturday, Afghan and U.S. troops were called to the area and administered emergency medical aid.
"The ceiling fell on me and then I was unconscious," said Mohammed, 9, whose nose was covered with a bandage. "When I woke up I thought someone had fired a rocket at the school. I saw the hands of some boys coming from the dirt, and some bodies. I was hurt, too. We were all buried under the wall."
Despite the villagers' insistence that the school had no enemies, several officials and professionals in the region said they were extremely wary of traveling in the Zurmat district. One doctor in Gardez said he could not safely drive an ambulance to Zurmat, and another health official said he kept secret any plans for staff members to travel to clinics in the district.
Residents also reported that two Afghans working for an aid agency had been ambushed and killed by gunmen on the road from Gardez to Zurmat in July. Hashim, the police chief, said a personal dispute had triggered the incident, but he insisted that two trucks of soldiers accompany a reporter to visit the bombed school, about five miles off the same road.
Among the families of Naik Nam, the bombing has left a pall of fear and grief. The tribal elders are leathery, sun-baked men who rarely express emotion, but there were tears in the eyes of Gul Mahmad, 60, as he stood Tuesday over several freshly mounded graves at the edge of the village.
"We were so proud and happy when the school opened. None of us ever had the chance to get an education," said Mahmad, as a dusty desert wind whipped his turban cloth around him. "I had three grandsons in that school, and now two of them are dead. If I meet the people who did this, I will turn them over to the government, but I wish I could devour them myself."
