PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dec. 16 (UPI) —
At least 126 people, mostly children, were killed Tuesday, and more injured and captured, when a Peshawar, Pakistan, school was overrun by Taliban militants.
The attack shocked a country accustomed to news of violence. Most of the victims were reported by Pakistani authorities to be between age 12 and 16.
The intruders, no more than six, wore security uniforms as they scaled walls and entered the Army Public School and Degree College, a military-run school in restive northwestern Pakistan. Many victims were killed or injured in a suicide bombing, although the attackers were each heavily armed and began firing as they entered the school.
Mohammed Khurrassani, spokesman for the Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told CNN the attack was a revenge action for the deaths of hundreds of tribesmen who have recently been killed by the Pakistani army in adjacent regions.
Up to 400 students remained “in the custody of the suicide bombers,” he said.
Reports by the army indicated a single suicide bomber and the evacuation of most of the school’s 500 students, most of whom are the children of military personnel.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, after arriving in Peshawar Tuesday, referred to the incident as “a national tragedy.”
Malala Yousafzai, the 17-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 aboard her school bus, issued a statement Tuesday:
On Dec. 10, Malala received the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest Nobel recipient in history.