These poor people, may all those that died RIP... so heart breaking!! This is why they flee, this is why they risk their lives to travel by boat... :( Pakistan massacre: Country mourns students killed in attack by Taliban militants on Peshawar school Wed 17 Dec 2014, 6:40pm Pakistan has woken to a day of mourning after Taliban militants killed 132 students at a school in the city of Peshawar in a grisly attack which shocked the nation and put pressure on the government to do more to tackle the insurgency. People around the country lit candles and staged overnight vigils as parents prepared to bury their children during mass funerals in and around Peshawar - a big, volatile city on the edge of Pakistans lawless tribal belt. Student played dead to survive I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again. A teenage survivor of the Taliban attack on a Pakistan school describes how he played dead after being shot in both legs. In Peshawar, the vast grounds of the military-run Army Public School were all but deserted, with a handful of snipers manning the roofs of its pink brick-and-stone buildings. Army vehicles and soldiers wearing face masks and carrying automatic rifles were deployed at the entrance. A day after the attack, Peshawar appeared subdued and many were still in shock, recalling the gruesome events and trying to soothe each other. More details of the well-organised attack emerged as witnesses came forward with their stories. The attackers came around 10:30 am on a pick-up van, 25-year-old school bus driver Issam Uddin said. They drove it around the back of the school and set it on fire to block the way. Then they went to Gate 1 and killed a soldier, a gatekeeper and a gardener. Firing began and the first suicide attack took place. Prime minister Nawaz Sharif announced a three-day mourning period but peoples anxiety focused on what authorities can do to protect the country. His office has announced it would end its moratorium on the death penalty in terror-related cases in the wake of the attack. The prime minister has approved abolishment of moratorium on the execution of death penalty in terrorism-related cases, an official said. Hanging remains on the Pakistani statute book and judges continue to pass the death sentence, but a de facto moratorium on civilian executions has been in place since 2008. Only one person has been executed since then, a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012. Rights campaign group Amnesty International estimates Pakistan has more than 8,000 prisoners on death row, most of whom have exhausted the appeals process. Government accused of leniency over Taliban Mr Sharif came to power last year promising to negotiate peace with the Pakistani Taliban - but those efforts failed this year, weakening his position and prompting the army to launch an air-and-ground operation against insurgents along the Afghan border. Despite the well-publicised crackdown, the military has long been accused of being too lenient towards Islamist militants who critics say are used to carry out the armys bidding in places like the disputed Kashmir region and Afghanistan. Timeline of terror in Pakistan December 16, 2014: Taliban insurgents storm an army-run school in Peshawar, killing at least 141 people. November 2, 2014: 55 killed after a suicide bomber detonates his vest at the daily closing ceremony at the main Pakistan-India border crossing. June 10, 2014: Ten Taliban militants lay siege to Karachi airport, killing 27 people. January 21, 2014: A bomb planted on a bus kills 24 Shiite pilgrims in southwest Baluchistan province. January 19, 2014: A bomb rips through a military convoy in the northwestern city of Bannu, killing 20 soldiers. September 29, 2013: A car bomb attack in a busy market area in Peshawar kills 42. September 22, 2013: Eighty-two people are killed when two suicide bombers attack a church in Peshawar as the congregation leaves after a Sunday service. August 9, 2013: A suicide bomber targets the funeral of a senior police officer in the southwest city of Quetta killing 38. July 27, 2013: Twin explosions at a busy marketplace in northwest Pakistan kill 41. March 3, 2013: A car bomb explodes in a Shiite Muslim neighbourhood in Karachi killing 45. February 16, 2013: A bomb at a market at Hazara Town, a Shiite Hazara neighbourhood in the suburbs of Quetta, kills 89. January 10, 2013: A double suicide attack on a snooker club kills 92 in a Shiite Hazara neighbourhood of Quetta. -AFP The military denies the accusations. People will have to stop equivocating and come together in the face of national tragedy, said Sherry Rehman, a former ambassador to the United States and an opposition politician. There have been national leaders who been apologetic about the Taliban, who have not named the Taliban in their speeches. The Pakistani Taliban, who are fighting to impose strict Islamic rule in Pakistan, are holed up in the inaccessible mountains straddling the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. They are allied with the Afghan Taliban as well as Al Qaeda and other foreign fighters, and Pakistan has long accused Afghanistan of not doing enough to crack down on their bases. Afghanistan, for its part, blames Pakistan for allowing militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network to operate freely on its territory and stage attacks in Afghanistan. Pakistans army chief was expected to visit Afghanistan on Wednesday for what is likely to be a day of uneasy talks with his Afghan counterparts on how to tackle the insurgency. Pakistans Dawn newspaper quoted a source as saying that the militants were acting on direct orders from their handlers in Afghanistan and that prominent Taliban commander Umar Naray was the ultimate mastermind of the attack. Army spokesman Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa hinted at that without naming Afghanistan. When these militants reached the school... we found out which group was involved, who they were talking to, from where the operation was being controlled, he said. God willing, in the coming two to four days you will get to know. abc.net.au/news/2014-12-17/pakistan-massacres-mourns-students-killed-taliban-peshawar/5973958
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 12:40:00 +0000
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