Pakistan Minister: 84 Children Dead in Taliban Attack on School

[Geee]

CNS News:

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing at least 84 people, officials said, in the worst attack to hit the country in over a year.

 

The overwhelming majority of the victims were students at the army public school, which has children and teenagers in grades 1-10.

 

The horrific violence, carried out by a relatively small number of militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban group, a Pakistani militant group trying to overthrow the government, also sent dozens of wounded flooding into local hospitals as terrified parents searched for their children.

 

The attack began in the morning hours, with about half a dozen gunmen entering the school — and shooting at random, said police officer Javed Khan. Army commandos quickly arrived at the scene and exchanged fire with the gunmen, he said.

 

[Valin]

Pakistan School Attack: Taliban Militants Kill 126 in Peshawar, Take Hostages

Mushtaq Yusufzai, Wajahat S. Khan and F. Brinley Bruton

Dec 16 2014

 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Uniformed militants attacked a school, killing at least 126 people and taking hostages on Tuesday, according to an official.

"The gunmen entered class by class and shot some kids one by one," a student who was in the school at the time told local media.

 

Provincial official Bahramand Khan said at least 126 people were killed and 122 injured. More than 100 of the dead were school children, he added. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault.

 

Commandos were sent to the scene and exchanged fire with gunmen who entered the Army Public School in Peshawar. Five "heavy" explosions were heard from the school at around 5 a.m. ET.

 

The Pakistani military later said four Taliban militants had been killed.

 

About 500 students and teachers were believed to be inside the site when gunfire erupted, although it was unclear how many remained inside the school.

 

(Snip)

[Casino67]

A sane person would think that this atrocity would dispel any support the Pakistani Taliban may have. Probably no chance of sanity though.

[NCTexan]

I guess these are not available in Pakistan... or maybe they just don't work so well.

[Valin]

Tarek Fatah ਤਾਰਿਕ ‏@TarekFatah

One of the injured students in #PeshawarAttack was born after 9/11 attack on US. His parents named him Osama. Hmm... http://tribune.com.pk/story/807768/with-a-bullet-in-his-chest-osama-told-his-mother-that-he-was-fine/ …

[Valin]

I guess these are not available in Pakistan... or maybe they just don't work so well.

 

 

Tarek Fatah ਤਾਰਿਕ @TarekFatah · 5h 5 hours ago

 

#RCMP advisor @RobertHeft asked Taliban not to condone 'terrorism in non-Muslim countries.' They hit Pakistan today.

 

[NCTexan]

@Valin Evidently the Fatas worked well.

 

These were not acts of "indiscriminate killing"... these were very well targeted.

[NCTexan]

 

Tarek Fatah ਤਾਰਿਕ ‏@TarekFatah

One of the injured students in #PeshawarAttack was born after 9/11 attack on US. His parents named him Osama. Hmm... http://tribune.com.pk/story/807768/with-a-bullet-in-his-chest-osama-told-his-mother-that-he-was-fine/ …

 

 

@Valin Which just goes to prove the old adage...

 

"It's hard to separate the pepper from the fly crap."

 

[Valin]

@Valin Evidently the Fatas worked well.

 

These were not acts of "indiscriminate killing"... these were very well targeted.

 

Absolutely. One of the things we need to remember the Punjabi's run Pakistan/Pak. Military. The Tailiban is mainly Pashtun, They want their own country.

[Valin]

I wonder (hope) this finally convinces the Pakistan government/military that India is not the main enemy right now.

[Draggingtree]

Anguish, Outrage In Pakistan After Taliban Attack On Peshawar School

Female relatives mourn over the casket of 15-year-old Mohammed Ali Khan, killed by the Taliban

Bloody siege of military high school apparently retaliation for recent Pakistani Army operations
India mourns slain Pakistani schoolchildren
PM Sharif: Terrorism will be rooted out

http://www.smh.com.au/world/anguish-outrage-in-pakistan-after-attack-on-peshawar-school-20141217-1292s7.html

[Valin]

Al Qaeda condemns Pakistani Taliban's attack on Peshawar school
Thomas Joscelyn

December 20, 2014

 

The spokesman for al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Usama Mahmood, has released a statement condemning the Pakistani Taliban's attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar earlier this week. More than 140 people, mainly children, were killed during the assault.

 

AQIS' four-page statement was released on Mahmood's official Twitter feed. In an accompanying tweet, Mahmood writes that the "massacre of innocent children" makes "our hearts burst!"

(Snip)

Other al Qaeda operatives on Twitter have similarly come out against the attack. One of them is known as Shaybat al Hukama, or "the eldest of the wise." On his own Twitter feed, al Hukama writes that al Qaeda "strongly condemns the massacre of innocent children" in Peshawar and "declares its innocence in front of Allah" for the "shedding [of] innocent blood."

 

Al Hukama is an al Qaeda media operative and works for the group's senior leadership. In his tweets on the Peshawar attack, posted earlier today, he appears to speak in AQIS' name as well. [For more al Hukama, see LWJ report, Well-connected jihadist tweets, then deletes, explanation of al Qaeda's oath to Mullah Omar.]

AQIS is al Qaeda's newest regional branch, and likely brings together several jihadist groups in Pakistan and the surrounding nations under al Qaeda's banner. Ayman al Zawahiri and other senior al Qaeda leaders announced the formation of AQIS in early September. The group quickly claimed responsibility for an attack on two Pakistani frigates and the assassination of a Pakistani officer.

(Snip)

 

[Valin]

Why Pakistan won't hunt down the terrorists within its borders
Pakistan's civilian leaders are terrified of the country's real power brokers
Shikha Dalmia

December 19, 2014

 

If there is anything approaching a silver lining in the horrific slaughter of 132 school children in Peshawar, it is the united outrage in Pakistan against Tehreek-e-Taliban (or the Pakistan Taliban) that perpetrated this gruesome attack. Virtually every newspaper in the country — left, right, and center — demanded that the Pakistani establishment declare a "zero tolerance" policy toward all Islamist terrorists, no ifs, ands, or buts.

 

Pakistan's largest English-language newspaper, The News, asked Pakistanis to think about what support for Islamist extremists has done to them. "Nothing matters more than ending the militancy and brutality it has brought to our society." Dawn, Pakistan's oldest newspaper, editorialized that military and counterterrorism operations will amount to "little more than firefighting unless there's an attempt to attack the ideological roots of militancy and societal reach of militants." The liberal Daily Times demanded a "chapter-turning decision" that brings a "final end to this terror."

 

But the most scathing was The Nation, which excoriated Pakistani leaders by name, reserving special scorn for Gen. Raheel Sharif, a bold move given that the terrorists had deliberately targeted an army-run school, and that many of the kids killed at point-blank range came from army families, as did the school principal, who was torched alive. "The country is reaping what it [the army] has sown over decades," the newspaper deplored.

 

This is absolutely correct. But the problem is that the mindset that sowed this poisonous fruit will make it difficult to root it out. Hence, these newspapers' noble calls are unlikely to be heeded.

 

Regimes change course only when the cost of maintaining the status quo exceeds the cost of enacting change. This is not to minimize the cost of scores of innocent young lives. But to Pakistan's political leaders, the price of these children's lives is still lower than the toll of a veritable civil war with an intelligence service that has long played footsie with extremist groups it finds geopolitically useful.

Ever since its inception over six decades ago, Pakistan has been obsessed with countering its neighbor, India..........(Snip)

[Valin]

Anguish, Outrage In Pakistan After Taliban Attack On Peshawar School

 

India-Pakistan: Reality Check For The Generals

December 28, 2014:

 

India, and many Pakistanis, are hoping that the Peshawar massacre will finally persuade the military leadership to turn away from its decades of obsession with India and forcing India out of Kashmir using Islamic terrorism. In the last few years Pakistani army leaders have admitted that, as a practical matter, their personnel are more actively involved fighting Islamic terrorists inside Pakistan than with defending the country against the Indian invasion that never comes and, if you read Indian newspapers, never will. Some Pakistani generals are now admitting that over 40 years obsession with India is an after effect of Pakistan losing the 1971 war. Not only was the Pakistani army decisively defeated in 1971, but the country lost much territory (which actively south to secede and became Bangladesh). Former Pakistani military commander and dictator Pervez Musharraf recently admitted that he started the 1999 Kargil border war with India as another attempt to avenge the defeat (and loss of Bangladesh) in 1971. Pakistani officers (and many other Pakistanis) have always attributed the loss of Bangladesh to an Indian conspiracy with traitorous politicians in Bangladesh (that used to be called East Pakistan). Bangladesh calls that conspiracy theory absurd and that the real reason for the rebellion was corruption and incompetent government imposed by troops from West Pakistan (which after 1971 was all that remained of pre-1971 Pakistan).

 

Pakistan reports that since the December 16 Peshawar massacre their forces in Waziristan and neighboring Khyber have killed over 200 Islamic terrorists using more aggressive ground operations as well as increased air strikes. This increases the total Islamic terrorist deaths (from the North Waziristan operation that began in June) to over 1,500. The security forces have lost about 130 men as well.

 

(Snip)