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Taliban Attack on School in Pakistan Kills More Than 100 Pakistani Taliban Attack on Peshawar School Leaves 145 Dead
(about 1 hour later)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Taliban gunmen stormed a school in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing more than 100 people, most of them children, in the worst terrorist attack in Pakistan in years. Hundreds of students were trapped inside the compound as security forces exchanged fire with the gunmen, officials said. PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Heavily armed gunmen stormed into a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing scores of teachers and schoolchildren and fighting a gun battle with the security forces. The siege continued for more than eight hours, with a large number of students still trapped inside the school compound, before the last of the attackers was killed, officials said.
The toll of dead and injured remained unclear, but local news media, citing government officials and hospitals, reported 126 dead, more than 100 of them children. The army press office said five attackers had been killed. Government and medical officials said that at least 145 people had been killed, more than 100 of them children. That figure includes the nine attackers, officials said.
The siege began Tuesday morning at around 10 a.m., when at least five heavily armed Taliban gunmen entered Army Public School and Degree College in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. According to initial reports, the gunmen opened fire on students and took dozens of hostages. Some students managed to escape the school compound, local media reported. A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said his group was responsible for the attack and said it was in retaliation for the military’s offensive against militants in the North Waziristan tribal district.
The gunmen entered after scaling a wall at the rear of the main school building. They opened fire and took dozens of students hostage in the main auditorium of the building, local media said. Desperate parents rushed to local hospitals or gathered outside the school gates seeking news of pupils at the school, who ranged in age from about 4 to about 16. The school had about 2,500 students in all, both boys and girls, according to the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province information minister, Mushtaq Ghani.
Television networks broadcast images of panic-stricken students, wearing green sweaters and blazers, being evacuated from the compound. The wounded were taken to Lady Reading Hospital in Peshawar. One parent, Muhammad Arshad, described his relief after his son Ehsan was rescued from the school by army commandos. “I am thankful to God for giving him a second life,” he said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has left the capital, Islamabad, for Peshawar, saying he would personally supervise the operation against the militants. A state of emergency was declared for Peshawar. Many others, though, were less fortunate.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it was in retaliation for the military’s offensive against militant hide-outs in the North Waziristan tribal region. The Pakistani military carried out an offensive, known as Operation Zarb-e-Azb, in June and has claimed to have cleared 90 percent of the restive region that has long been a redoubt of local and foreign militants. The militants’ assault on the school started at about 10 a.m., when the gunmen entered the Army Public School and Degree College in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. Local news reports said the gunmen were disguised as paramilitary Frontier Corps soldiers and gained entry by scaling a wall at the rear of the main building.
As news of the attack spread, distraught parents rushed toward the school and to hospitals. The school has been cordoned off by security forces, and there were reports of heavy gunfire as military commandos and troops battled with the militants inside. The attackers then opened fire on students with guns and grenades and, in a chilling echo of the Beslan school siege in Russia in 2004, took dozens of people hostage in the school’s main auditorium, according to news reports.
By the afternoon, three blocs of the school had been cleared, a military spokesman said. There were unconfirmed news reports that at least three gunmen had been killed, as well as a suicide bomber who had detonated his explosives. Some students managed to flee. Television coverage showed panic-stricken pupils in green sweaters and blazers, the school uniform, being evacuated from the compound. Others were wounded, and were taken to the Lady Reading Hospital in the city, where other parents gathered looking for news of their children. The hospital later published a list of students known to have died; many of the dead have not yet been identified.
The attack comes at a time of intense political strife in Pakistan. The opposition politician Imran Khan, who controls Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, has been staging protest rallies in major cities. Mr. Khan claims that the general elections of 2013 were rigged and is now demanding a judicial investigation. By late afternoon, the army said it had cleared three sections of the school compound and that troops were pushing through the remaining sections. After the last of the militants was killed, officials said, soldiers were sweeping the compound for explosives.
Since August, his party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, has carried out protests in the capital against Mr. Sharif and has demanded his resignation. On Monday, Mr. Khan’s party paralyzed the eastern city of Lahore by blocking its main roads and protesting outside main government buildings. The party has announced that it will try to shut down the entire country on Thursday. Mr. Sharif has responded by inviting Mr. Khan to the negotiating table. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif arrived in Peshawar, where the authorities declared three days of mourning. Mr. Sharif announced an emergency meeting of all political parties in the city for Wednesday. In a statement, the foreign ministry said it was “deeply shocked” by the attack but that the government was undeterred in its fight against the Taliban.
While the political parties fight it out on the streets, the attack on Tuesday was a grim reminder that militancy remains the most potent threat to the country. The military says that at least 1,800 militants have been killed in Operation Zarb-e-Azb and that the terrorists remain on the run. “These terrorists are enemies of Pakistan, enemies of Islam and enemies of humanity,” the statement said.
The British prime minister, David Cameron, called the attack “deeply shocking,” said it was “horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school.” The American ambassador to Pakistan, Richard G. Olson, said the United States “stands in solidarity with the people of Pakistan.”
And Malala Yousafzai, the teenaged education campaigner from northwestern Pakistan who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in a ceremony last week, said she was “heartbroken by this senseless and cold-blooded act of terror.”
“Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this,” Ms. Yousafzai said in a statement. “I, along with millions of others around the world, mourn these children, my brothers and sisters — but we will never be defeated.”
The Army Public School in Peshawar is part of a network of schools that the military operates in garrisons and major cities across Pakistan. Students from army families have preferential access, but many of the students and teachers in the schools come from civilian backgrounds.
The school in Peshawar is in a part of town where major government and military buildings are located. The area has frequently been a target for militant attacks.
The assault on the school comes at a time of political turbulence in Pakistan. The opposition politician Imran Khan, whose party controls the provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has been staging protest rallies in major cities in a bid to unseat Mr. Sharif, claiming that Mr. Sharif’s supporters rigged the 2013 elections.
Mr. Khan has criticized army operations in the tribal areas and called on the government to negotiate with the militants instead of fighting them, a stance that has attracted wide criticism.
The Pakistani Taliban have come under intense pressure this year because of internal frictions and the military’s continuing operation in North Waziristan, which started in June following an audacious attack on the Karachi airport.
The military says that the offensive, officially known as Operation Zarb-e-Azb, has resulted in the death of 1,800 militants and cleared much of North Waziristan, the region’s most notorious hub of militant activities.
Still, the school attack on Tuesday demonstrated that the Taliban remain willing and able to strike at vulnerable civilian targets.