At Least 20 Killed in Taliban Attack on School

Four Taliban militants attacked a university in northwest Pakistan, leaving 20 dead.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack by multiple gunmen that killed at least 20 people at a university in northwestern Pakistan Wednesday morning.

In addition to the victims, Pakistan police said four attackers had been killed at Bacha Khan University in the town of Charsadda, located 21 miles outside the city of Peshawar.

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Taliban leader Khalifa Umar Mansoor told AFP: “Our four suicide attackers carried out the attack on Bacha Khan University today.” Mansoor said the attack was in retaliation for a military offensive against extremists in tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.

Mansoor was the mastermind behind the December 2014 attack on an army-run school that killed over 150 people, 144 of them children.

But the main spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Mohammad Khurasani, said the attack was “un-Islamic” and insisted the Pakistani Taliban were not behind it. Such statements from among the Taliban are not uncommon since the group has many loosely linked factions.

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The militants, wielding AK-47s, used the cover of thick, wintry fog to scale the campus walls. They then went into university buildings and opened fire on teachers and students as classes began.

Explosions were heard inside and Pakistani TV stations aired images of heavily armed security personnel entering the compounds as female students ran for their lives.

At the university gates, distraught relatives of those being taught inside anxiously waited for news.

Regional police chief Saeed Wazir said most of the victims were killed at a hostel for male students inside the campus.

Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa, an army spokesman, said 18 students and two teachers were killed.

Source: FOX News

The attack highlights the fact that the Taliban, though weakened in light of the advance of ISIS through the Middle East, remains emboldened to perpetrate terrorist acts whenever possible. The details of this attack are gruesome and paint a barbaric picture that has not dissipated since the US vowed to defeat the Taliban in response to the attacks of September 11th.