Pakistan seige ends

The Pakistan government says that they finally ended the seige at the Army Public School and College in Peshawar conducted by only seven Taliban terrorist Jihadists according to the Associated Press;

A 14-year-old, Mehran Khan, said about 400 students were in the hall when the gunmen broke through the doors and started shooting. They shot one of the teachers in the head and then set her on fire and shouted “God is great!” as she screamed, added Khan, who survived by playing dead.

From there, they went to classrooms and other parts of the school.

“Their sole purpose, it seems, was to kill those innocent kids. That’s what they did,” Bajwa said. Of the 141 people slain before government troops ended the assault eight hours later, 132 were children and nine were staff members. Another 121 students and three staff members were wounded.

The seven attackers, wearing vests of explosives, all died in the eight-hour assault. It was not immediately clear if they were all killed by the soldiers or whether they blew themselves up, he said.

I expect more scenes like this across Afghanistan soon. Although, the above-linked article says that Afghan Taliban called the attack “un-Islamic”. The Voice of America reports that another 120 people were wounded.

From Yahoo News;

“This was blowback we have been expecting for some time,” said Jalil Abbas Jilani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, in a radio interview on “The Diane Rehm Show” Tuesday about the attack on the school.

The “blowback” theory was underscored by a statement from the TTP’s own spokesman, Mohammed Umar Khorasani. He called the assault “a revenge attack” for the army offensive, adding: “We targeted the school because the army targets our families. We want them to feel our pain.”

[…]

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. who worked closely with Obama administration officials, said his country’s military offensive was flawed from the outset.

“It seems the Pakistani effort has been inadequate,” he told Yahoo News in an interview. The offensive was announced well in advance and “too well publicized,” giving key TTP leaders an opportunity to flee and escape the brunt of the attacks.

Category: Terror War