Wahdat Afghan / Reuters

An Afghan schoolgirl receives treatment at a hospital after allegedly being poisoned in Takhar province May 23, 2012.

KABUL – Over 100 girls from Afghanistan’s northern Jawzjan province in Afghanistan were hospitalized Monday after allegedly being poisoned.  The girls, ages 8 to 22, fell ill while attending class at Meser Abad High School, local officials told NBC News.

More than 300 schoolgirls in the province have allegedly experienced poisoning in the last two weeks.

Local officials blamed the Taliban for the schoolgirls’ poisoning, however, the Taliban have rejected the accusation.

Some speculate that the illnesses could be blamed on mass hysteria linked to fears of a Taliban takeover once the U.S. and international forces withdraw from the country in 2014.

Both the Afghan government and NATO forces have done blood tests on the students after the poisonings, but have found no traces of poison.   

Experts have said that the poisoning scare has all the “earmarks” of mass hysteria. Robert Bartholomew, an expert on mass hysteria, told the AFP that the scare is typical of social panic in other war zones like Kosovo in the past.

 "The tell-tale signs of psychogenic illness in these Afghan outbreaks include the preponderance of schoolgirls; the conspicuous absence of a toxic agent; transient, benign symptoms; rapid onset and recovery; plausible rumors; the presence of a strange odor; and anxiety generated from a wartime backdrop.”  

EPA

School girls receive first aid in Jowzjan on July 2.

NBC spoke with Heather Barr, an Afghanistan Researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Kabul, about the incidents and why the education of girls is such a potent symbol of change since the fall of the Taliban.  

Read a Q & A with Barr below:

Why is girls’ education still the subject of the alleged poisoning attacks?
Schoolgirls, their teachers and their schools are a soft target for insurgent groups seeking to terrorize communities and demonstrate the government's inability to protect communities. The Taliban has issued recent statements talking about their commitment to education, but these statements conspicuously do not mention girls' education – and threats and attacks continue.

Why is poison a main method of disruption?
These [alleged] poisonings are very perplexing, primarily because we have yet to see clear scientific evidence of the presence of poison, in spite of testing by [NATO’s] International Security Assistance Force and international organizations. 

Some experts have suggested that these incidents may have a psychological explanation rather than a chemical one. If that is true, it speaks volumes about the trauma and fear school children experience simply going to school every day, due to threats and attacks against schools.

It would also beg many worrying questions about the arrests that have been made in Takhar and the confessions from some of those arrested. [She was referring to the alleged poisoning of students in Afghanistan’s Northeastern Takhar Province]

Whether or not there is poison involved, these incidents are having a devastating effect on girls' education.

Do these attacks against schools have the desired outcome?  Does it disrupt education for girls? Are families frightened or defiant?
I'm afraid that the attacks do have the desired outcome. Many schoolgirls and their families are defiant in the face of threats and attacks, but at the same time half of all girls are not in school, and security is unquestionably the cause of some of these girls being denied education.

What is the Afghan government doing about the attacks?
The government should make public, and share with international experts, any scientific evidence they have regarding the use of poison in these cases. By doing so can they lay to rest questions about whether poison is really involved and gain assistance in prevent future incidents.

Is this situation likely to continue?
Tragically the poisoning incidents seem to be rapidly gaining momentum at the moment. It is urgent that the government respond effectively and find a way to prevent these incidents. And the first steps have to be understanding what poisons – if any – are involved.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Protesters defy stun grenades to halt work on $1.6 billion factory in China
• Sneak peek inside Olympic Village: 'Not a five-star resort'
• Former Gitmo prisoner: How I see America
• Afghans are 'no different from any American'
• On the road with Syria's rebel motorcycle army
• Libya frees four ICC officials accused of spying

Follow World News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

Updated at 7:38 a.m. ET Friday: KABUL – Guests swam for their lives after five Taliban gunmen attacked a lakeside hotel in Afghanistan, killing at least 18 people and taking 50 others hostage in a siege lasting several hours, according to reports.

The militants -- armed with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns -- attacked the exclusive Spozhmai hotel in the Qargha Lake recreation area late Thursday, bursting into a private party and shooting dead hotel workers. 

The local police chief told NBC News that all five insurgents were killed. The Associated Press quoted local police as saying the civilian death toll was 18 - including hotel guards and a policeman - and likely to climb. 

Many terrified guests jumped into the lake in darkness to escape the carnage, according to Afghan officials and local residents.

More photos: Afghan, NATO forces fight back after Taliban gunmen take hostages at lakeside hotel

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

A soldier from NATO-led forces, center, outside the Spozhmai hotel after the attack came to an end on Friday.

Reuters journalist Hamid Shalizi reported that the guests were a party of wealthy Afghans.

NBC News producer Cheryll Simpson said on Twitter that heavy gunfire could be heard from the hotel, which is about six miles from the center of Kabul.

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the hotel was used for "prostitution, alcohol and immorality," she reported.

For the deeply conservative Taliban, men and women who simply mingle, perhaps flirt, are condemned as pimps and prostitutes who deserve punishment sanctioned by God.

8-year-old cleaner tells of attack
Rasoul Khan, 8, who works as a cleaner at the hotel, told Reuters that Taliban gunmen “were asking everyone where the pimps were. They shot anyone who would not co-operate with them."

The young boy had a facial injury.

With a quavering voice, Ebadullah, 14, another cleaner at the hotel, described how one of his friends wet himself when an insurgent demanded information on the whereabouts of other guests.

Musadeq Sadeq / AP

People hide from militants outside the Spozhmai hotel on Lake Qurgha during an attack on the hotel on Friday.

"He cried and said that he was an orphan and was the only bread winner for his family," he told Reuters. 

At a military hospital in Kabul where the wounded were treated, engineer Salder Rahi recalled how he had gone to the hotel to meet his brother and three friends. By the end of the ordeal, his sibling was among the dead.

"They opened fire on everybody. Everybody just ran. There was a party outside and I saw the father shot dead and his wife wounded," Rahi told Reuters.

Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images

NATO UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters fly near the Spozhmai Hotel in Qargha lake in the outskirts of Kabul in the early hours of Friday.

Abdullah Samadi, 24, was just settling in at the hotel when he heard a huge blast from an RPG, followed by gunfire. "We tried to escape, but we were surrounded by suicide bombers. We hid ourselves beneath a tree until morning. God protected us," he said.

The gunmen, Samadi said, had been closely watching their prisoners and searching for illegal stocks of wine.

"Around dawn they came closer to us and we had to jump in the water," he said. "We were there until 9 a.m. and then the situation got better and we slowly, slowly swam toward security forces."

Elite Afghan quick-response police backed by NATO troops freed the remaining hostages and killed the gunmen in an operation that only began in earnest after sunrise to help security forces avoid unnecessary civilian deaths in night-time confusion.

Two NATO attack helicopters could be seen over the single-story hotel building and a balcony popular with guests for its sunset views.

'Crime against humanity'
The incident again highlighted the ability of the Afghan Taliban to stage high-profile attacks even as NATO nations prepare to withdraw most combat troops by the end of 2014, leaving Afghan forces to take the lead against the insurgency.

Authorities are about midway through a transition process during which security responsibility is being handed from NATO-led foreign troops to Afghan forces.

"This is a crime against humanity because they targeted children, women and civilians picnicking at the lake. There wasn't even a single soldier around there," said General Mohammad Zahir, head of the Kabul police investigation unit.

Qargha Lake is one of Kabul's few options for weekend getaways. Restaurants and hotels that dot the shore are popular with Afghan government officials and businessmen, particularly on Thursday nights.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Guests at the Spozhmai must pass through hotel security before entering the hotel, where tables with umbrellas overlook the water, but security is relatively light for a city vulnerable to militant attacks.

Violence across Afghanistan has surged in recent days, with three U.S. soldiers and more than a dozen civilians killed in successive attacks, mostly in the country's east where NATO-led forces have focused their efforts during the summer fighting months.

Several well-planned assaults in Kabul in the past year have raised questions about whether the Taliban and their al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network allies have shifted tactics to embrace high-profile attacks targeting landmarks, foreigners and Afghanistan's elite, extending a guerrilla war once primarily waged in the countryside.

Afghan insurgents attacked Kabul's heavily protected diplomatic and government district on April 15 in an assault, eventually quelled by Afghan special forces guided by Western mentors, similar to one in September 2011.

President Hamid Karzai told a special session of parliament on Thursday that attacks by insurgents against Afghan police and soldiers were increasing as most foreign combat troops prepare to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Mexico captures suspected son of most wanted drug lord 'El Chapo'
• Reports: West may offer Syria's Assad immunity if gives up power
• Mass grave found of 'giant wombats' the size of a rhinoceros
• South African couple released by Somali pirates after 20 months

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

By Cheryll Simpson
Kabul, Afghanistan

The yellow rickety bus pulls up at the big iron gates. Enthusiastic students, in the midst of a harsh winter, arrive quickly. Others soon appear by foot or pushbike, and they all line up for their daily security pat-down to enter school. But this isn’t just any school, this is Afghanistan’s revived institution for the education of young Afghan musicians.

Ahmad Sarmast, 49, the founder of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, is an Afghan national from Australia who lives in Kabul most of the year.

“I identified the need to establish a dedicated music college, where the most disadvantaged kids of Afghan society can get their general education and specialist training in music that will guarantee them a bright future,”  he said.

The jovial father of two comes from a family with a rich musical pedigree -- his father was the late, well-known Afghan musician Ustad Sarmast. The younger Sarmast wanted to use that reputation and his qualifications to help his native country. His vision for the school took root in 2006 after he earned his Ph.D. in music at Monash University in Melbourne.

Several years later, the school is thriving, and music teachers come from all over the world to instruct the students.  Instrument tuition ranges from drums, piano and violin to traditional string instruments such as the Sarod and Rubab.

One of the students, who goes by the name Sapna, is an orphan from Jalalabad who is believed to be 9 years old. Now, she says, she can envision a future for herself.

 “When they did [the] entrance exam I chose piano -- and I also like violin,” she said.  “I want to be famous all over the world. All kids should learn these things.”

Afghan culture had always provided a rich tapestry of music tradition and history, but when the Taliban captured power in the 1990s, they forcibly banned music in Afghanistan. Musicians suffered discrimination – in many areas only chanting was permitted. Post-Taliban, Sarmast witnessed a bleak and discouraging picture of the music scene.

“When I saw that very grave picture – I decided my country needs me and I have to return back to Afghanistan,” Sarmast said. “That was the major factor for my decision.”

The school now has 140 students with 50 percent of the school enrollment each year reserved for the disadvantaged kids from Afghan society: orphans, street vendors and girls. Sarmast said his school is committed to not only promote music, but to rebuild ruined lives and to empower the women of Afghanistan to practice and listen to music.

“While we are preserving or reserving 50 percent of the places for the most disadvantaged group of Afghan society, the other 50 percent are the most talented kids of Afghanistan,” he said.  "If they’ve got the talents, we do everything to have them here.”

People in the community are very supportive of the promotion of music, and music education, Sarmast said. “ everyone is trying to get their kids here so that says a lot.”

One man who shares the same vision as Sarmast is popular music teacher William Harvey from Indianapolis, Ind. who has been teaching at the school since March 2010.  Harvey said he believes in the power of music to transcend cultural barriers. “It’s a positive experience that transforms the relationship between the countries one person at a time,” he said.

“When I first came here they could only play ‘Love Story’, or ‘Godfather’, now I have two top students learning Bach’s concerto for two violins,” he added.

Harvey said the students are exceptional and unusual. Teaching the Afghans differs from teaching students in the U.S. because the students often come from very difficult backgrounds. 

“It’s also possible in the U.S., but the social mechanism to support them isn’t always there. If a child is being beaten constantly by her father there is no child protective services here," Harvey said. "We do have children that used to be selling chewing gum on the street but thanks to the sponsorship program initiated by Dr. Sarmast, now they are studying violin with me.”

Harvey recalled a student of his, a girl who was forced to work on the streets, begging for small change to support her family. Her father had been paralyzed after being beaten with an electric cable during the Taliban’s reign.

"Instead of working on the streets this girl is now studying violin -- and I believe that she has a good shot at a career, not just in Afghanistan but perhaps internationally given the talent that she has shown.”

Harvey said he believes cultural diplomacy is essential for the United States' relationship with Afghanistan. "I remember conducting the orchestra for President Karzai, four times now, and one of those times someone who was a member of the previous government came up to me and shook my hand and I thought, ‘Wow – this is amazing,'” he said. "Because you know under the government that he served music was banned. And here he is shaking hands with an American who just conducted Afghan children – boys and girls playing Afghan music.”

Sarmast is confident that in 10 years there will be at least three other music schools in Afghanistan.  “That’s my vision and I’m dedicated to establishing three more. But on the other end I see, and it’s clearly in front of my eyes, the first symphony orchestra of Afghanistan completed by the graduates of ANIM!” he said excitedly. 

"When they play I can see the happiness in their faces – and how much they are enjoying it,” he said. “On Sunday I was in the orchestra room and they were rehearsing I couldn’t control my tears when I came out of the studio.”