16/12/2014
Pakistan Taliban: Peshawar school attack leaves 141 dead
Militants from the Pakistani Taliban have attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, killing 141 people, 132 of them children, the military say.
Officials say the attack in the north-western city is over, with all the attackers killed. Seven militants took part in all, according to the army.
Scores of survivors are being treated in hospitals as frantic parents search for news of their children.
The attack - the Taliban's deadliest in Pakistan - has been widely condemned.
Describing the attack from his hospital bed , Shahrukh Khan, 17, said a gunman had entered his classroom and opened fire at random.
As he hid under a desk, he saw his friends being shot, one in the head and one in the chest. Two teachers were also killed.
A Taliban spokesman told BBC Urdu that the school, which is run by the army, had been targeted in response to military operations.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters are thought to have died in a recent offensive in North Waziristan and the nearby Khyber area.
US President Barack Obama said terrorists had "once again shown their depravity" while UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said it was "an act of horror and rank cowardice".
This brutal attack may well be a watershed for a country long accused by the world of treating terrorists as strategic assets.
Pakistan's policy-makers struggling to come to grips with various shades of militants have often cited a "lack of consensus" and "large pockets of sympathy" for religious militants as a major stumbling-block. That is probably why, when army chief Gen Raheel Sharif launched what he called an indiscriminate operation earlier in the year against militant groups in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, the political response was lukewarm at best. We will get them, was his message, be they Pakistani Taliban, Punjabi Taliban, al-Qaeda and affiliates, or most importantly, the dreaded Haqqani network. But the country's political leadership chose to remain largely silent. This is very likely to change now.
Late on Tuesday, military spokesman Asim Bajwa told reporters in Peshawar that 132 children and nine members of staff had been killed.
All seven of the attackers wore su***de bomb vests, he said. Scores of people were also injured.
It appears the militant’s scaled walls to get into the school and set off a bomb at the start of the assault.
Children who escaped say the militants then went from one classroom to another, shooting indiscriminately.
One boy told reporters he had been with a group of 10 friends who tried to run away and hide. He was the only one to survive.
Others described seeing pupils lying dead in the corridors. One local woman said her friend's daughter had escaped because her clothing was covered in blood from those around her and she had lain pretending to be dead.
Troops sealed off the area around the school
The school is near a military complex in Peshawar. The city, close to the Afghan border, has seen some of the worst of the violence during the Taliban insurgency in recent years.
Many of the students were the children of military personnel. Most of them would have been aged 16 or under.
Please pray for those and Pray for Pakistan!
Nathans Welfare Trust & Team.
Matthew 10:28
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
