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Taliban Militants Attack Pakistan School
More Than 120 People, Mostly Schoolchildren, Are Killed at Military-Run School in Peshawar
www.wsj.com/articles/taliban-militants-attack-pakistan-school-1418716418
Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 124 people, most of them schoolchildren, in one of the militant group's most horrifying and deadliest attacks. Photo: AP
By Qasim Nauman and Safdar Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, andSaeed Shah in Islamabad, Pakistan
Updated Dec. 16, 2014 11:24 a.m. ET
Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 124 people, most of them schoolchildren, in one of the militant group’s deadliest attacks.
Children remained trapped in the Peshawar school as hostages, officials said, with the attack still continuing some eight hours after it began.
Army and police personnel surrounded the Peshawar school building shortly after the assault began. By nightfall, security personnel, including the army’s special-forces unit, had killed six of the attackers and cleared much of the sprawling school campus, military officials said. Bombs planted by the attackers were slowing down the clearance operation.
Amir Ameen, speaking from his hospital bed at Peshawar’s Lady Reading hospital, said that he and 11 other students were taking an exam when two gunmen entered their classroom. They shot students one by one, mostly in the head, he said.
The attackers were talking in Pashto, the language spoken in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, and they kept shouting “Allah Akbar” or “God is great,” he added.
They also shot the teacher, a woman, and her 2-year-old daughter whom she had brought to school. “I am the only survivor from my class. I was hit in the stomach. I just played dead when they checked on me,” Mr. Ameen said.
Shahrukh, a 17-year-old who gave only his first name and was shot in both legs, said that many students were assembled for a function in the school hall when the gunmen burst in and started spraying bullets. He fell on the ground when he was hit.
“I saw them set one of our teachers on fire on front of me,” Shahrukh said.
Even by the bloody standards of Pakistan, Tuesday’s assault on schoolchildren and the scale of the killings created a new grim milestone in the country’s seven-year-old battle against Islamist insurgents.
Muhammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call, saying the group had sent suicide attackers as “revenge for the military operation in Waziristan.” He added that they were targeting “senior officers” at the school.
“These children were innocent,” said Pervaiz Khattak, the provincial chief minister, adding that the attackers wore the uniform of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force designed to guard the country’s tribal areas.
Taliban gunmen stormed a military school in Pakistan, killing more than a hundred people, most of them schoolchildren, in one of the worst militant attacks to hit the already troubled region. Video: AP
Security officials said a squad of gunmen entered the Army Public School on Warsak Road in Peshawar, capital of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, around 11 a.m. local time, and took control of the main building.
The Army Public School is part of a military-run system of schools across Pakistan, offering education from primary to high-school levels, and is open to children of military personnel as well as civilians.
“They have attacked funerals and mosques, for them there is no limit. They are operating outside human values,” said Mehmood Shah, a retired security official in Peshawar. “They want to terrorize the population into submission.”
Provincial government officials said at least 1,500 students, from preschool to high school, were present on campus when the attack began. Among the dead was the school principal, Saeed Khan.
Most of the students managed to flee the compound, according to the Pakistani military. But of those who were injured, many had life-threatening wounds, and the death toll was expected to rise. More injured people were being brought to hospital hours after the attack began.
Militants stormed a military-run school in the northwest of the country on Tuesday, killing more than 100 people, most of them schoolchildren.
An injured Pakistani student lies on a bed at a hospital following an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Pakistani rescue workers take out students from an ambulance. The students were injured in a shootout at a school under attack by Taliban gunmen in Peshawar. Associated PressPakistani volunteers gather around bodies of students at a hospital in Peshawar. Zuma Press
A Pakistani father mourns beside the body of his son at a hospital following an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
An injured student is carried to safety after Taliban militants stormed the school. Associated Press
A hospital security guard assists an injured student. More than 100 people were killed in the attack, most of them schoolchildren. Associated Press
A victim of the attack is moved for treatment at a local hospital. Zuma Press
An injured boy waits to be seen by medical staff. Some children remain trapped in the school as hostages, officials said. Zuma Press
A coffin containing a victim in Peshawar. Even by Pakistan standards, the scale of the killings created a grim milestone in the country’s seven-year-old battle against Islamist insurgents. Zuma Press
Parents gather near the site of the attack. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Soldiers were brought in to transport rescued school children from the site. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Relatives of a student injured in the attack. Many of those injured had life-threatening wounds. Reuters
An injured schoolgirl is carried to hospital. “More and more people are being brought in, so this could get worse,” the provincial health minister said. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Schoolchildren flee from the attack, which is thought to be the bloodiest assault on a school since the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia, which left nearly 400 dead. Khuram Parvez/Reuters
A Pakistani soldier takes up position close to the school. Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press
Children, wearing the school’s green and white uniform, flooded the hospitals, along with their distraught families. Some students arrived to give blood donations.
By Tuesday evening, 15 badly burned bodies of students, who couldn’t be immediately identified, were brought to the city’s Combined Military Hospital, security officials said.
The Pakistani military earlier this year launched a major operation to clear the Taliban strongholds in the North Waziristan tribal area on the Afghan frontier.
The Pakistani Taliban, formed in 2007, is closely linked to al Qaeda. The group was inspired by the Afghan Taliban but works independently, pursuing more brutal tactics.
It was the Pakistani Taliban that took responsibility for the attempted assassination of Nobel Prize winning schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai two years ago.
“I am heartbroken by this senseless and cold blooded act of terror in Peshawar that is unfolding before us,” said 17-year-old Ms. Yousafzai, in statement. “Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this.”
Pakistani officials long feared that the military’s North Waziristan operation, launched in June, would unleash revenge attacks by militants across the country. However, until Tuesday’s assault, the blowback had been relatively muted. Since the army’s offensive began, there had been no major Taliban attacks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the province that borders the tribal areas and is often on the front line of the violence.
“No one should be in any doubt that our fight against terrorism will continue,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said after arriving in Peshawar Tuesday. “There will be no dent in our resolve as a result of incidents like this.”
The raid on the Peshawar school was so extreme that it drew condemnation even from some groups aligned with Islamist militancy.
“This was carried out by the enemies of Islam. It is open terrorism,” said Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Jamaat ud Dawa, the group blamed by the international community for the 2008 attack on Mumbai. “These are barbarians operating under the name of jihad.”
The Peshawar attack is thought to be the bloodiest assault on a school since the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia, which left nearly 400 dead.
In Tuesday’s assault, at least five of the attackers entered the school from the side that borders a graveyard, said provincial information minister Mushtaq Ghani. “They are using children as human shields, this is a very difficult situation,” he said.
Most of North Waziristan has been cleared of militants, the Pakistani military says, though it concedes that many left before the well-flagged government operation began.
Part of the Pakistani Taliban is based in eastern Afghanistan, beyond the reach of Pakistan’s army. Islamabad is seeking cooperation from U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and the Afghan army to act against the Pakistani Taliban sanctuaries in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces in the east of Afghanistan.
North Waziristan, a stronghold for Pakistani militants, Afghan insurgents and al Qaeda, was the last major part of the tribal areas that hadn’t been cleared. Pakistan began a series of operations against militants in 2009 in the northwest of the country, but North Waziristan had been left to fester until this year.
“By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity,” said U.S. President Barack Obama , in a statement from the White House. He reiterated U.S. support for the Pakistan government’s “efforts to combat terrorism and extremism and to promote peace and stability in the region.”
Write to Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com
Taliban Militants Attack Pakistan School
More Than 120 People, Mostly Schoolchildren, Are Killed at Military-Run School in Peshawar
www.wsj.com/articles/taliban-militants-attack-pakistan-school-1418716418
Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 124 people, most of them schoolchildren, in one of the militant group's most horrifying and deadliest attacks. Photo: AP
By Qasim Nauman and Safdar Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, andSaeed Shah in Islamabad, Pakistan
Updated Dec. 16, 2014 11:24 a.m. ET
Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 124 people, most of them schoolchildren, in one of the militant group’s deadliest attacks.
Children remained trapped in the Peshawar school as hostages, officials said, with the attack still continuing some eight hours after it began.
Army and police personnel surrounded the Peshawar school building shortly after the assault began. By nightfall, security personnel, including the army’s special-forces unit, had killed six of the attackers and cleared much of the sprawling school campus, military officials said. Bombs planted by the attackers were slowing down the clearance operation.
Amir Ameen, speaking from his hospital bed at Peshawar’s Lady Reading hospital, said that he and 11 other students were taking an exam when two gunmen entered their classroom. They shot students one by one, mostly in the head, he said.
The attackers were talking in Pashto, the language spoken in northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, and they kept shouting “Allah Akbar” or “God is great,” he added.
They also shot the teacher, a woman, and her 2-year-old daughter whom she had brought to school. “I am the only survivor from my class. I was hit in the stomach. I just played dead when they checked on me,” Mr. Ameen said.
Shahrukh, a 17-year-old who gave only his first name and was shot in both legs, said that many students were assembled for a function in the school hall when the gunmen burst in and started spraying bullets. He fell on the ground when he was hit.
“I saw them set one of our teachers on fire on front of me,” Shahrukh said.
Even by the bloody standards of Pakistan, Tuesday’s assault on schoolchildren and the scale of the killings created a new grim milestone in the country’s seven-year-old battle against Islamist insurgents.
Muhammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call, saying the group had sent suicide attackers as “revenge for the military operation in Waziristan.” He added that they were targeting “senior officers” at the school.
“These children were innocent,” said Pervaiz Khattak, the provincial chief minister, adding that the attackers wore the uniform of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force designed to guard the country’s tribal areas.
Taliban gunmen stormed a military school in Pakistan, killing more than a hundred people, most of them schoolchildren, in one of the worst militant attacks to hit the already troubled region. Video: AP
Security officials said a squad of gunmen entered the Army Public School on Warsak Road in Peshawar, capital of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, around 11 a.m. local time, and took control of the main building.
The Army Public School is part of a military-run system of schools across Pakistan, offering education from primary to high-school levels, and is open to children of military personnel as well as civilians.
“They have attacked funerals and mosques, for them there is no limit. They are operating outside human values,” said Mehmood Shah, a retired security official in Peshawar. “They want to terrorize the population into submission.”
Provincial government officials said at least 1,500 students, from preschool to high school, were present on campus when the attack began. Among the dead was the school principal, Saeed Khan.
Most of the students managed to flee the compound, according to the Pakistani military. But of those who were injured, many had life-threatening wounds, and the death toll was expected to rise. More injured people were being brought to hospital hours after the attack began.
Militants stormed a military-run school in the northwest of the country on Tuesday, killing more than 100 people, most of them schoolchildren.
An injured Pakistani student lies on a bed at a hospital following an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Pakistani rescue workers take out students from an ambulance. The students were injured in a shootout at a school under attack by Taliban gunmen in Peshawar. Associated PressPakistani volunteers gather around bodies of students at a hospital in Peshawar. Zuma Press
A Pakistani father mourns beside the body of his son at a hospital following an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
An injured student is carried to safety after Taliban militants stormed the school. Associated Press
A hospital security guard assists an injured student. More than 100 people were killed in the attack, most of them schoolchildren. Associated Press
A victim of the attack is moved for treatment at a local hospital. Zuma Press
An injured boy waits to be seen by medical staff. Some children remain trapped in the school as hostages, officials said. Zuma Press
A coffin containing a victim in Peshawar. Even by Pakistan standards, the scale of the killings created a grim milestone in the country’s seven-year-old battle against Islamist insurgents. Zuma Press
Parents gather near the site of the attack. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Soldiers were brought in to transport rescued school children from the site. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Relatives of a student injured in the attack. Many of those injured had life-threatening wounds. Reuters
An injured schoolgirl is carried to hospital. “More and more people are being brought in, so this could get worse,” the provincial health minister said. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Schoolchildren flee from the attack, which is thought to be the bloodiest assault on a school since the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia, which left nearly 400 dead. Khuram Parvez/Reuters
A Pakistani soldier takes up position close to the school. Mohammad Sajjad/Associated Press
Children, wearing the school’s green and white uniform, flooded the hospitals, along with their distraught families. Some students arrived to give blood donations.
By Tuesday evening, 15 badly burned bodies of students, who couldn’t be immediately identified, were brought to the city’s Combined Military Hospital, security officials said.
The Pakistani military earlier this year launched a major operation to clear the Taliban strongholds in the North Waziristan tribal area on the Afghan frontier.
The Pakistani Taliban, formed in 2007, is closely linked to al Qaeda. The group was inspired by the Afghan Taliban but works independently, pursuing more brutal tactics.
It was the Pakistani Taliban that took responsibility for the attempted assassination of Nobel Prize winning schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai two years ago.
“I am heartbroken by this senseless and cold blooded act of terror in Peshawar that is unfolding before us,” said 17-year-old Ms. Yousafzai, in statement. “Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this.”
Pakistani officials long feared that the military’s North Waziristan operation, launched in June, would unleash revenge attacks by militants across the country. However, until Tuesday’s assault, the blowback had been relatively muted. Since the army’s offensive began, there had been no major Taliban attacks in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the province that borders the tribal areas and is often on the front line of the violence.
“No one should be in any doubt that our fight against terrorism will continue,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said after arriving in Peshawar Tuesday. “There will be no dent in our resolve as a result of incidents like this.”
The raid on the Peshawar school was so extreme that it drew condemnation even from some groups aligned with Islamist militancy.
“This was carried out by the enemies of Islam. It is open terrorism,” said Hafiz Saeed, the leader of Jamaat ud Dawa, the group blamed by the international community for the 2008 attack on Mumbai. “These are barbarians operating under the name of jihad.”
The Peshawar attack is thought to be the bloodiest assault on a school since the 2004 Beslan school siege in Russia, which left nearly 400 dead.
In Tuesday’s assault, at least five of the attackers entered the school from the side that borders a graveyard, said provincial information minister Mushtaq Ghani. “They are using children as human shields, this is a very difficult situation,” he said.
Most of North Waziristan has been cleared of militants, the Pakistani military says, though it concedes that many left before the well-flagged government operation began.
Part of the Pakistani Taliban is based in eastern Afghanistan, beyond the reach of Pakistan’s army. Islamabad is seeking cooperation from U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan and the Afghan army to act against the Pakistani Taliban sanctuaries in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces in the east of Afghanistan.
North Waziristan, a stronghold for Pakistani militants, Afghan insurgents and al Qaeda, was the last major part of the tribal areas that hadn’t been cleared. Pakistan began a series of operations against militants in 2009 in the northwest of the country, but North Waziristan had been left to fester until this year.
“By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity,” said U.S. President Barack Obama , in a statement from the White House. He reiterated U.S. support for the Pakistan government’s “efforts to combat terrorism and extremism and to promote peace and stability in the region.”
Write to Saeed Shah at saeed.shah@wsj.com
