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By Noor Zahid Afghan provincial officials reported a rise in girls' enrollment rates across eastern Nangarhar Province, despite constant attacks and threats by Islamic State and other militant groups in the area. "Of the 14,000 graduates last year, we had 3,000 girls. This year, 4,000 girls graduated out of the total 18,000 graduates," said Mohammad Asif, a spokesperson for the department of education in Nangarhar. Asif added that girls constituted 45 percent of the 820,000 total students in the province. Girls are traditionally deprived of education in Afghanistan's remote areas and were not allowed to go to school when the Taliban was in power. Decades-long conflict in the country has had negative effects on education, but there has been improvement in the last 15 years, with millions of students including girls, returning to school. Urban and rural disparities Analysts say more girls are attending school in urban areas than it is in rural parts of the provin