One 13-year-old hospital patient tells the BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil “they were firing..I was hiding under a chair”
Militants from the Pakistani Taliban have attacked a school in Peshawar, killing 141 people, 132 of them children, the military say.
Pakistani officials say the attack is now over, with all of the attackers killed. A total of seven militants took part, according to the army.
Scores of survivors are being treated in hospitals as frantic parents search for news of their children.
The attack is the deadliest ever by the Taliban in Pakistan.
There has been chaos outside hospital units to which casualties were taken, the BBC’s Shaimaa Khalil reports from Peshawar.
Bodies have been carried out of hospitals in coffins, escorted by crowds of mourners, some of them visibly distraught.
Coffins are being carried out of Peshawar hospitals
Empty coffins were delivered to a hospital in Peshawar in readiness for the removal of the dead
School pupil Mohammad Baqair lost his mother, a teacher, in the attackA Taliban spokesman told BBC Urdu that the school, which is run by the army, had been targeted in response to army operations.
Hundreds of Taliban fighters are thought to have died in a recent military offensive in North Waziristan and the nearby Khyber area.
US President Barack Obama condemned the “horrific attack (…) in the strongest possible terms”.
Analysis: Aamer Ahmed Khan, BBC News
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.
Anxious family members crowded around Peshawar hospitals
Troops helped evacuate children from the school
A total of 114 people were injuredMilitary spokesman Asim Bajwa told reporters in Peshawar that 132 children and nine members of staff had been killed.
All seven of the attackers wore suicide bomb vests, he said. Scores of people were also injured.
It appears the militants 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.
Deadly attacks in Pakistan
16 December 2014: Taliban attack on school in Peshawar leaves at least 141 people dead, 132 of them children
22 September 2013: Militants linked to the Taliban kill at least 80 peopleat a church in Peshawar, in one of the worst attacks on Christians
10 January 2013: Militant bombers target the Hazara Shia Muslim minority in the city of Quetta, killing 120 at a snooker hall and on a street
28 May 2010: Gunmen attack two mosques of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect in Lahore, killing more than 80 people
18 October 2007: Twin bomb attack at a rally for Benazir Bhutto in Karachi leaves at least 130 dead. Unclear if Taliban behind attack
A hospital doctor treating injured children said many had head and chest injuries.
Irshadah Bibi, a woman who lost her 12-year-old son, was seen beating her face in grief, throwing herself against an ambulance.
“O God, why did you snatch away my son?” AFP news agency quoted her as saying.
Some of the injured were carried to hospital in people’s arms
Both girls and boys went to the school
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.
Hundreds of parents are outside the school waiting for news of their children, according to Wafis Jan from the Red Crescent
Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani Nobel laureate who was shot by the Taliban for campaigning for the right to an education, condemned the attack.
“I, along with millions of others around the world, mourn these children, my brothers and sisters, but we will never be defeated,” she said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has arrived in Peshawar, described the attack as a “national tragedy”. Pakistani opposition leader and former cricket captain Imran Khan condemned it as “utter barbarism”.
A Taliban spokesman was quoted by Reuters as saying the school had been attacked because the “government is targeting our families and females”.
India Training Terrorists For Attack In Pakistan
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The fact that India has been training militants and then sending them to Pakistan for terrorist activities is not new. There have been various incidents in the past that have endorsed this suspicion. In the recent attack on the Karachi airport, the Involvement of foreign terrorists has been brought to surface. An Italian journalist has investigated the case of Indian involvement in the terrorist activities in Pakistan which has been an eye opener on this matter as this journalist is also a witness of the horrifying Indian project of terrorism in Pakistan.
According to the reports of the Italian journalist, an Indian training camp has been established near Tajikistan at Farkhore airbase and Aini airbase, where the young recruits of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan are trained and sent to Pakistan for terrorist attacks. Indian secret agencies are recruiting individuals from the deprived sections of the society, who are enticed through a job on a heavy salary and their families are paid a handsome amount for their recruitment. These young men are given a lavish living in these camps and a religious Indian instructor gives them religious education based on extremism, terrorism and hate against Pakistan to brain wash these individuals.
These Indian instructors are fluent in Uzbek and Tajik languages. They instil concepts against Pakistan in these individuals and make them believe that Pakistan is responsible for the sufferings of the Muslims all over the world. They also make them believe that India is a supporter of religious harmony and peace and that its existence has been threatened by the nuclear ability of Pakistan. The instructor takes three weeks to instil these ideas into the minds of these recruits.
The recruits are then asked if they are ready for Jihad against Pakistan. Those answering with a ‘yes’ are given double the salary and are sent to training camps where they are prepared for attacks within 4 to 6 months. Those who are still not willing for attacks are then sent for further brain washing to India. The recruits are taught to use automatic weaponry and how to handle explosives. They are given gorilla training as well. During these camps, Indian girls are brought into these camps who mesmerize these individuals through their beauty and help them forget their worries completely.
After the completion of their training, the recruits are brought to India and then entered into the tribal areas of Pakistan via Afghanistan. According to reports, recruits from Fata and Balochistan are also included with these foreign recruits to make them feel at home. These camps have been operating since 2005, although their establishment was intended since 2002. But this fact has not been confessed at the government level which has still made this matter unidentifiable.
