Pak Taliban target army-run school, kill 132 children in revenge attack

Omer Farooq Khan 

Dec 17, 2014

PESHAWAR: Picking the softest of soft targets, the Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday launched a savage and cowardly attack on a school, essentially for children of military families, spraying machine-gun fire on kids behind desks and leaving 132 of them dead. By the time the nine-hour siege ended, 141 people including the terrorists were killed. It was the worst attack on children anywhere in the world since the Beslan mass killing by Chechen Islamist rebels in 2004.

Addressing a press conference in Peshawar after conclusion of rescue operation, military spokesman, Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa, said the Tehrik-e-Taliban attack on the Army Public School and Degree College in Peshawar was carried out by seven terrorists wearing suicide jackets. He said the attackers had planned to stay for long.

"The ration and ammunition which they brought was sufficient for several days," he said. At the time of the attack, he said, around 1,100 students and staff members were in the school. He said that the special services group (SSG), which carried out the operation, rescued about 960 students and their teachers. He said 141 people, including 132 students, were killed and 121 injured. The dead included school's woman principal Tahira Qazi. Another female teacher was burnt to death.

"During the operation seven SSG soldiers and two officers were also injured," he said. The spokesman claimed to have taken pictures and videos of the terrorists and said to have tracked down their communication with their leaders. "We'll share the record with media later," Bajwa said.

The terrorists had planted improvised explosive devices in the school making rescue operations difficult, leading to virtually a day-long gun battle. Claiming responsibility, Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani said, "We selected the army school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain."

Women mourn their relative Mohammed Ali Khan, 15, a student who was killed during an attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School, at his house in Peshawar December 16, 2014. 

The attackers, dressed in uniforms of paramilitary force, entered the school premises on Warsak Road in the morning at around 10am after scaling a wall at the rear of the school's main building. A security official said many of the casualties were caused by suicide blasts, with provincial official Mushtaq Ghani saying five of the terrorists blew themselves up.

As the siege continued, frantic parents waited in dread outside the school and at hospitals hoping to find their children. Eyewitnesses said the gunmen began firing at the kids as soon as they entered the school, taking hundreds of them hostages. However, some students managed to escape the school compound.

"I saw six people scaling the wall," said Mudassir Awan, a worker at the school. "We thought it must be the children playing some game. But then we saw a lot of firearms with them," he told reporters.

"As soon as the firing started, the students ran to their classrooms. The militants were entering every classroom and killing the children," he said, adding there were screams of children and teachers everywhere.

Aamir Ali, a second-year student who survived the attack, said, "I was sitting with my classmates in the corridor when firing began. We rushed to the classroom but were soon chased by two clean-shaven gunmen, dressed in uniforms of Frontier Constabulary, a paramilitary force. They told us to read 'kalima' and then started firing indiscriminately. All my classmates were killed but I miraculously survived."

A teacher, Waqarullah Khattak, said he told students to lie down on the floor when they heard AK-47 shots and grenade blasts. After less than an hour, they were led to safety by commandos, Khattak said.

Men carry the coffin of a student who was killed during an attack by Taliban gunmen on the Army Public School, during a funeral in Peshawar December 16, 2014.(Reuters photo)

"There was blood everywhere, and limbs and torn pieces of children's flesh could be seen where the bombers blew themselves up," a security official said. "They were keen on killing as many students as possible rather than taking them hostages," he added.

The dead and injured students were shifted to Lady Reading and Military Combined Hospital. About 35 dead and 52 injured were taken to Lady Reading hospital while about 110 dead and more than 200 injured were shifted to CMH. Doctors feared the death toll could rise as many of the injured were in critical condition.

"Our six fighters successfully entered the army school and we were giving them instructions from outside," spokesman Khorasani said. "We took this extreme step as revenge. We will target every institution linked to the army unless they stop operations and the extra-judicial killing of our detainees," he said.

"We have instructed our men not to harm small children even if they are the sons of senior military or civilian leaders," the TTP spokesman added.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who arrived in Peshawar in the evening, said the struggle for complete eradication of militancy will continue. "We will work together with Afghanistan to work towards ending militancy," he said. "Operation Zarb-e-Azb is progressing successfully and this is a time for the nation to unite and tackle terrorism," Sharif said.

Following the attack, Imran Khan, whose Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf party is ruling the province, postponed his party's call for countrywide protests on Dec 18 against rigging in last polls. Tuesday's attack raised questions about whether the militants had been crippled by the military.