Terrorist Attack on APS Peshawar

The first lesson of the day for 10-year-old Irfan Shah at Peshawar’s Army Public School was social studies. But as he settled down to his books, he was not to know that his world was about to be blown apart.

“I was sitting in my class when I heard firing outside. Our teacher first told us that some kind of drill was going on and that we do not need to worry,” he said. “Then the sound came closer. Then we heard cries. One of our friends opened the window. He started crying as there were several schoolfellows lying on the ground outside the class. Everybody was in panic. Two of our class fellows ran outside in panic. They were shot in front of us.”

It was the beginning of an eight-hour massacre in which 132 of the school’s 1,092 students and nine of the staff were to die, with hundreds more injured. A teacher was burnt to death in front of the students in a classroom, a military source told a US TV network.

The nightmare only ended after nightfall as Pakistani army commandos went from classroom to classroom, checking that all the militants were accounted for. Nine died during the day, several blowing themselves up in the school and killing students as well as themselves. Seven soldiers were wounded. By the end of the day the school’s concrete buildings were reduced to smoking rubble.  

In another classroom of the Army Public School in the heart of the most dangerous city in Pakistan, a teenage student named simply as Khan was also getting down to work when, as he later recalled: “Someone screamed at us to get down and hide below the desks.” Within seconds the gunmen were among them. “They shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ [‘God is great’] before opening fire. I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me. This guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches. ‘There are so many children hiding beneath the benches, go get them,’ one of the men ordered another,” Khan said.

The black boots came towards him and Khan was shot in both legs below the knee. “I felt searing pain,” he said. “I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream. The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to be shot again. My body was shivering. I saw death so close. I will never forget the black boots approaching me – I felt as though it was death that was approaching me.”

He waited until the men left then realised he couldn’t walk then crawled to the next room where he saw the burnt body of the school office assistant. He crawled behind a door to hide and lost consciousness.

Another student, 15-year-old Shahrukh Khan, was also shot in both legs but survived by hiding under a bench. “One of my teachers was crying,” he said from hospital. “She had been shot in the hand and was crying in pain. One terrorist then walked up to her and started shooting her until she stopped making any sound. All around me my friends were lying injured and dead.”

Pakistan has lived with terrorist outrages for years, but the scale and cold-bloodedness of this latest attack resonated around the country.

The Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, flew to Peshawar to monitor the operation.

 Announcing three days of  national mourning, he  said: “This was a national  tragedy, unleashed by  savages. No one should be  in any doubt: this struggle,  this war will continue. The  government started the  anti-terrorist operation in  conjunction with the army  and it’s now showing results. It will continue until terrorism is rooted out from this land. I appeal to the nation to show unity at this critical juncture. No one should have doubts about our determination to fight terrorism. We will take revenge for each and every drop of our children’s blood that was spilled today.”

Responsibility for the attack was quickly claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban, whose strongholds in North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, have been under sustained assault by the Pakistani army since June. In that time at least 1,200 suspected militants are said to have been killed. The spokesman for the group, Muhammad Umar Khorasani, said: “We selected the army school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain.”

The attack began at 10am. Major-General (retired) Athar Abbas, a former spokesman for the Pakistani army, told the BBC: “Six terrorists came in front of the school in a small Suzuki van. One of them got out and came to the school gate and blew himself up. When the security guards rushed to the spot, this allowed the others to get into the school. There was a function in the school, an assembly in the auditorium, saying farewell to ninth and 10th-grade students. They started firing in the auditorium and three of them blew themselves up.”

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistan security expert, said: “I think there were several messages here. First of all I think they attacked something that was very sensitive to the army: many of the soldiers and officers who are fighting the Taliban have their children in this school. So this is an attempt to demoralise the military.

“I think the second message is to do with Malala [Yousafzai]. Remember that Malala has been receiving accolades from all over the world, and remember she was shot by the Taliban and she has been advocating education for all, and the Taliban have been very strongly opposing her view on education. So they are sending a very strong message that ‘we don’t like your schooling system and we want an Islamic schooling system’.

Relatives of injured student comfort him as he mourns the death of his mother who was a teacher at the school which was attacked by Taliban (AP)

“The third reason is that Peshawar has become almost an ungovernable city now. Terrorism there is rampant. We know that there are Taliban cells inside the city which the authorities have not been able to get at, so really they can attack practically anywhere they want to.”

The Terrorist don't know what the f''k they have done. Now the Nation is United and the TTP will be crushed now... 

#CrushTTP

#HangTaliban

#MeinHoonPakistan.... We are ONE Nation now...