The
Pakistani city of Peshawar is burying its dead after a Talibanattack
at a school killed at least 132 children and nine staff. New
images from
the school show the brutality of the attack, with pools of blood on the ground
and walls covered in pockmarks from hundreds of bullets. Continue..
Mass
funerals and prayer vigils for the victims are currently under way.Gunmen
had walked from class to class shooting students in the Pakistani Taliban's
deadliest attack to date.
PM
Nawaz Sharif declared three days of mourning over the massacre, which has
sparked national outrage.
He also
announced an end to the moratorium on the death penalty for terrorism cases, which
correspondents say is a move aimed at countering a view held by many Pakistanis
that many terror suspects end up evading justice.
World
leaders have also voiced disgust at the attack, which even the Afghan Taliban
have criticised.
It is a very eerie atmosphere.
These are premises that should be alive at a time of day like this to the sound
of hundreds of children who studied here and began school as normal yesterday.
But it is desolate today.
The army has been
working through the night to clear the premises of explosives.
I am standing now at
the bottom of the white stone steps that lead up to the auditorium. There are
blood stains running right down the steps and towards the auditorium itself.
There is a child's
shoe on one of the steps. The auditorium, where children were taking exams, was
one of the places within the school grounds that the militants first targeted.
As I peer in now, the
chairs that the children were sitting on are upturned, the place has been
turned upside down and again I can see the blood stains on the floor right
around me.
Separately, Pakistan's
army says it launched
air strikes at militants in the Khyber and North Waziristan
areas, although it is not yet clear if this was a direct response to the school
attack. An offensive against the militants has been going on since June.
Mr Sharif also
convened a meeting of all parliamentary parties in Peshawar to discuss the
response.
Afghan
role
Meanwhile, Pakistan's
army chief General Raheel Sharif is in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on a surprise
visit to discuss security cooperation aimed at tackling the Taliban insurgency.
Pakistani Taliban
(TTP) leader Mullah Fazlullah is believed by the Pakistani authorities to be
hiding in Afghanistan and media reports in Pakistan suggest the school attack
may have been coordinated from Afghanistan.
But the TTP said the
attack had been masterminded by its military chief in the Peshawar region, who
it said had been in touch with the gunmen throughout the assault.
A TTP spokesman told
the BBC they had deliberately killed older pupils and not targeted "small
children".
BBC correspondents say
the Taliban statement is being seen as damage limitation after the attack was
universally condemned in Pakistan for its brutality.
The TTP also repeated
its earlier claim that only six attackers were sent, contradicting official
accounts that seven gunmen were killed. The militants say the attack was
revenge for the army's campaign against them, and that they chose the school as
a target because their families had also suffered heavy losses.
Scenes
of devastation
Reporters visiting the
school for the first time saw pools of blood marking the floor and torn
notebooks, clothing and shoes among the debris.
"This is not a
human act,'' military spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa said during a tour of
the school, the Associated Press reports. "This is a national
tragedy."
Seven Taliban attackers wearing
bomb vests cut through a wire fence to gain entry to the school, before
launching an attack on an auditorium where children were taking an exam.
Gunmen
then went from room to room at the military-run school, shooting pupils and
teachers where they found them in a siege that lasted eight hours, survivors
say.
A total
of 125 people were wounded at Peshawar's Army Public
School, which teaches boys and girls from both military and
civilian backgrounds. All seven attackers were killed, while hundreds of people
were evacuated.
Mohammad Hilal, a student in
the 10th grade, was shot three times in his arm and legs when the gunmen stormed the school
auditorium.
"I
think I passed out for a while. I thought I was dreaming. I wanted to move but
felt paralysed. Then I came to and realised that actually two other boys had
fallen on me. Both of them were dead," he told the BBC.
Zulfiqar
Ahmad, 45, the head of the mathematics department who was shot four times
during the attack told the BBC he did not believe any of the 18 students in his
class had survived.
The
victims are also being mourned elsewhere, with India's parliament observing a
minute's silence in their honour.
India's
Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his country's "deepest
condolences".
Pakistani embassies
worldwide have lowered their flags to half-mast and opened books of condolences.
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 people at
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
In Afghanistan itself,
the local Taliban described the school attack as un-Islamic and said they were
sending condolences to the families of the victims.
The Afghan Taliban are
currently stepping up their own attacks in Afghanistan and share roots with the
Pakistani Taliban and usually share the same ideology too, the BBC's Mike
Wooldridge reports from Kabul.
Hundreds of Taliban
fighters are thought to have died in the recent Pakistan army offensive in the
Khyber area and North Waziristan, regions close to the Afghan border.
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