Taliban Kill 130 in School Attack

[Shirib]

Ina Lilaahi wa inaa ilayhi raajicuun. This is so sad, it's depressing. How do people do this to children? To innocent people who have done no harm. May Allah punish those responsible and grant those who lost their lives and their families peace and blessings.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scores killed in attack on Peshawar school; Taliban claims responsibility



At least 130 people, most of them children, were killed Tuesday when Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northern Pakistan city of Peshawar, taking hundreds of students hostage in the bloodiest attack in the country in years. Police officials confirmed later in the day that six attackers were killed in the ensuing military raid.

"The combat operation is over. The security personnel are carrying out a clearance operation and hopefully they will clear the building in a while," police official Abdullah Khan told Agence France-Presse. "Dead bodies of six terrorists have been found in the building."

Chief army spokesman Gen. Asim Bajwa said that explosive devices planted in school buildings were slowing clearance efforts, and that special forces soldiers had rescued more than a dozen staff and students.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Pakistani Taliban, immediately claimed responsibility for the siege, with spokesman Muhammad Khorasani saying attack was in retaliation for an ongoing Pakistan Army operation against the TTP and its allies in the North Waziristan tribal area.

"We selected the army's school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females," Khorasani said. "We want them to feel the pain."

Khorasani told Al Jazeera that six suicide bombers were sent to the school with orders to allow the youngest students to leave, and to kill the rest.

About 500 students and teachers were believed to have been inside the school when the raid occurred. The school is located on the edge of a military cantonment in Peshawar, but most of the students are civilian.

Earlier, troops surrounded the building during a rescue operation to bring children trapped inside to safety. Hours into the siege, three explosions as well as heavy gunfire were heard inside the school.

Outside, as helicopters rumbled overhead, police struggled to hold back distraught parents who were trying to break past a security cordon and get into the school. Bahramand Khan, director of information for the regional Chief Minister's Secretariat, said that more than 100 of the dead were schoolchildren, and that 122 other people were wounded.

"It may rise," Khan said. A local hospital said the dead and wounded it had seen were between 10 and 20 years old.

It was not immediately clear whether some or all of the children and adults were killed by the Taliban gunmen or in the ensuing battle with Pakistani security forces trying to gain control of the building after the early morning attack.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and said he was on his way to Peshawar.

“This is a national tragedy unleashed by savages. These were my kids,” he said in a statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama also released a statement condemning the attack.

"By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity," the statement read.



The attack began in the morning hours, with an initial blast as the attackers hit the school, followed by a second explosion. Gunmen entering the school — which has students in grades 1 through 10 — and shooting at random, said police officer Javed Khan.

Outside the school, shooting was initially heard along with one loud bang of unknown origin. Army commandos quickly arrived at the scene and exchanged fire with the gunmen, Khan said. Small-arms fire was heard throughout the raid as security forces tried to retake the school.

Pakistani television showed soldiers surrounding the area and pushing people back. It was not clear whether the soldiers were already on the scene when the violence began or was part of the troops who responded.

“We were standing outside the school and firing suddenly started and there was chaos everywhere and the screams of children and teachers,” said Jamshed Khan, a school bus driver.

Shaukat Yousafzai, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's health minister, said a school function had been going on in the senior section of the school when an explosion went off. There were reports of as many as three explosions.

"This is a very saddening event, and these are our children, the children of Pakistan,” he said. “By killing these children, I am not sure what service these terrorists have done to Islam."

One of the wounded students, Abdullah Jamal, said that he was with a group of 8th, 9th and 10th graders who were getting first-aid instructions and training with a team of Pakistani army medics when the violence began.

When the shooting started, Jamal, who was shot in the leg, said nobody knew what was going on in the first few seconds.

“Then I saw children falling down who were crying and screaming. I also fell down. I learned later that I have got a bullet,” he said, speaking from his hospital bed.

The Pakistani military began Operation Zarb-e-Azb against the TTP and its allies on June 15, and says that it has so far retaken larges areas of territory from the group, killing more than 1,270 people

The army is also carrying out a military operation in Khyber Agency, which borders Peshawar, where it says it has killed at least 179 fighters.

The Pakistani Taliban have vowed to step up attacks in response to a major army operation against the insurgents in the tribal areas.

They have targeted security forces, checkpoints, military bases and airports, but attacks on civilian targets with no logistical significance are relatively rare.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2 ... hawar.html

[Libix]

Allah u naxariisto.

[FAH1223]

Fukk these criminals.

[GAMES]

Aamin. The Taliban are scumbags who only target the innocent and the weak.

What would killing innocent kids who are in school accomplish? If anything they just signed their own death.

Find them and those ISIS scumbags and terminate them with extreme prejudice.

Si bini aadam nimada kabaxsan haloogula dhaqmo.

[Redsea90]

USA uses Pakistan as a base to launch attacks against the taliban.

[jamal9]

i predict al-kabab will outdo them talibans by slaughtering 300 kids in somalia.