Gunmen storm university in Pakistan, killing at least 20 people
In deadly attack on Pakistani college, extremists take new aim at students
(about 9 hours later)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen slipped into a college campus under cover of fog Wednesday, killing at least 20 people — some of them shot execution-style — in the latest terrorist attack in Pakistan targeting students in apparent revenge for expanding military crackdowns.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Once again, horrific images of dead and injured students flashed across television screens in Pakistan. Once again, sobbing parents rushed into hospitals searching for their children. And once again, Pakistani youths are reminded they are targets for Islamists seeking to topple a nuclear-armed government.
The attack in Charsadda, about 30 miles from Peshawar, was claimed by a Taliban faction. It is likely to unite the country behind stern action against Islamist militants 13 months after a similar rampage at a nearby army-run school killed about 150 students and teachers.
On Wednesday, a little more than a year after Pakistani Taliban insurgents killed about 150 teachers and students at a school in northwestern Pakistan, militants took new aim at students on track to make up the country’s future professional class.
Four suspected attackers also were killed in Wednesday’s bloodshed, officials said.
The attack at Bacha Khan University, which was claimed by a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, began shortly after 9 a.m. when four gunmen used the cover of Pakistan’s notorious winter fog to slip onto campus.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed a “ruthless response,” saying the attack was on all of Pakistan.
The gunmen shot and killed 20 students and two teachers, some execution-style, and wounded nearly two dozen others. Several students said the toll could have been much higher were it not for a teacher armed with a pistol who briefly held off the attackers before being killed himself.
“Cowards and their finances will see our national resolve to eliminate terror,” a statement issued by his office said, even as some Pakistani media outlets reported that the death toll could rise from among the dozens wounded.
The massacre in Charsadda, about 30 miles from where the December 2014 school attack occurred in Peshawar, is intensifying fears that Pakistan’s long-term strategy for combating Islamist militant groups is inadequate.
The attack underscored the resilience of Taliban militiamen despite a widening campaign of airstrikes and other offensives by Pakistan, which has lowered overall violence but has not dismantled militant groups that can easily slip across the Afghan border to relative safe havens.
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The Pakistan Taliban also appears increasingly splintered, with some groups favoring so-called soft targets such as schools and others insisting the fight is mainly with Pakistan’s security forces. After Wednesday’s attack — claimed by a hard-line Taliban offshoot — the main Pakistani Taliban faction denounced it as “un-Islamic.”
Over the past year, Pakistan’s military says it has largely driven groups such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda from the country’s northwestern tribal belt, which became a hub of domestic and international terrorist groups after Sept. 11, 2001. But security officials and analysts have warned for months that Pakistan remains vulnerable to major attacks because government leaders have still not mounted a widespread offensive against the roots of militancy, including conservative religious seminaries.
Security and analysts, however, have repeatedly stressed that the Pakistani Taliban remains capable of pulling off headline-grabbing attacks, especially in the northwestern part of the country. In September, the Pakistani Taliban asserted responsibility for an attack on a Pakistani Air Force base in Peshawar, killing 29 people.
“The government says the military operation [against Islamist extremists] is successful,” said Wisal Khan, who said his son, Junaid, was killed in Wednesday’s attack. “But I ask, how can it be that successful if the terrorists are still killing the people and the children?”
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The attack is also refocusing attention on the vulnerabilities of schools, both in Pakistan and the West. Schools are generally less well-guarded than government buildings and are tempting targets because “when you hit students and kids, the pain is more,” said Saad Muhammad, a retired Pakistani army general and Islamabad-based security analyst.
Wednesday’s assault began about 9 a.m. when at least four gunmen cut through a back fence into Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.
“Terrorists hate” schools, Muhammad added, “because they say this is Western education and it’s un-Islamic.”
“I saw two terrorists standing on the roof. . . . They were shouting, ‘Allahu Akhbar,’ ” said Basit Khan, a student of computer sciences, referring to an Islamic cry for God is great. “After that, firing started and I and my friends started running. There were people screaming. We were terrified.”
But it appears that the carnage at Bacha Khan University, named after a late Pashtun nationalist and inspirational force behind the founding of the progressive Awami National Party, could have been worse.
Eyewitnesses told The Washington Post that many of the university students were shot in the head.
After the Pakistan Taliban attacked the army-run school in Peshawar in 2014, officials began allowing some teachers to carry weapons in the classroom and gave them weapons training.
Ashfaq Ahmad, a security officer of the university, told The Post that the attackers sneaked in through the backyard of the university and “were restricted to the boy’s hostel when security guards opened fire on them.” He said most of the victims were male students. He said a cook and an assistant professor were also among the dead.
Syed Hamid Husain, an assistant chemistry professor at Bacha Khan University, was apparently carrying his pistol on Wednesday when the gunmen sneaked onto campus.
“The attackers cut the barbed wire and jumped into the campus. Our guards engaged them and they did not reach the girl’s hostel and main administration block,” he said. He described four attackers around 20 years of age.
In separate interviews with Agence France-Presse and The Washington Post, several students described Husain as a hero because, they said, he pulled out his pistol and confronted the attackers, who were armed with assault rifles. The 27-year-old teacher was killed in the ensuing exchange of fire.
Shaukat Yousafzai, a local lawmaker, said preliminary information indicated that at least 20 people had been killed. Yousafzai said at least 50 people had been injured, many of whom were suffering from gunshot wounds.
Students said Husain’s actions gave them time to hide or escape.
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“We saw the professor standing there with a gun in his hand,” said Shaid Malik, 22, a geology student. “He told us to rush back to our rooms and do not open the door for anyone.
A Pakistani Taliban regional group — Omar Mansoor from Darra Adam Khel region — claimed responsibility for the attack. “We have sent four suicide attackers and they have killed dozens of people,” said a statement by the group, which is also believed to have been behind the Peshawar school attack.
“When the firing stopped, after a while, we came down and saw the professor dead, lying on the ground with the same gun in his hand.”
“This is a message to the Pakistani army and civilian leadership, who have executed 130 mujahideen, our people. We will carry out more attacks to take revenge on them,” the group said.
Another student, Mohammad Shabeer, said Husain held off the attackers for 15 minutes before he was killed.
Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, a spokesman for the Pakistan military, said security forces converged on the campus and killed four suspected terrorists. Bajwa said a search operation was still ongoing.
Shabeer said another student, who also was armed because of threats that had been made against him and his family, helped Husain battle the attackers.
The co-ed university is named after Bacha Khan, a Pashtun nationalist leader who was the founder of Pakistan’s Awami National Party.
That student also was killed, he said.
The party is known for its strong anti-Taliban views, and many of its leaders have been killed in recent years. Wednesday was the 28th year anniversary of Khan’s death. The attack occurred as a gathering of Pashtun poets was taking place on campus to commemorate the anniversary
A spokesman for the Pakistani military was not able to confirm the students’ version of events. But one school official said the presence of armed security guards on campus had been instrumental in averting a far greater death toll.
Saeed Khan Wazir, a senior police officer, told media that the gunmen sneaked onto school grounds by using the cover of Pakistan’s chronically foggy mornings during the winter.
The guards battled the attackers before police and paramilitary forces arrived, which kept the gunmen from entering the women’s dormitory, the official said.
“There was severe fog, and visibility was almost none,” Wazir said.
Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, spokesman for the Pakistani military, said investigators are still trying to determine the nationalities of the gunmen and who supplied them with weapons.
One student told Pakistan’s Channel 24 news that he was in his dormitory when he heard gunshots.
A Pakistani Taliban regional group — led by Omar Mansour from the Darra Adamkhel region — sent a statement to reporters Wednesday claiming responsibility. Mansour is also believed to have been a mastermind behind the Peshawar school attack.
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Highlighting an emerging split within the group, however, the main Pakistani Taliban faction issued a separate statement denouncing the killings as “un-Islamic.”
“It was a deafening sound, and first we decided to go out and run, but upon hearing continuous firing, we shut our room doors,” the student said. “Two terrorists came to my door and shouted, ‘We are army, and we are here to rescue you.’ But I didn’t open the door.
The Pakistani Taliban, an offshoot of the Taliban group waging an insurgency in Afghanistan, is pushing for the imposition of sharia law in Pakistan. Since its founding in the mid-2000s, more than 50,000 Pakistanis have been killed in terrorist attacks or battles between the military and Islamist militants.
“After this, they started firing at the door, but I lied down on the floor silently waiting till they were gone.”
The military operation against the group began in June 2014 after an attack on Karachi’s international airport killed more than two dozen people. Since then, especially over the past year, there has been a major decline in terrorist attacks in Pakistan.
Prime Minister Sharif, who is in Zurich for a global economic conference, said in an earlier statement that law enforcement agencies converged on the scene to rescue students and faculty members.
But analysts said militant groups still have a plentiful pool of potential recruits, both in conservative rural areas and relatively modern major cities. Pakistani leaders have also been slow to arrest radical clerics who coddle Islamist extremists, analysts say.
“We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,” he said. “The countless sacrifices made by our countrymen will not go in vain.”
“This attack clearly shows that terrorists have not disappeared from Pakistan. Although they are weakened, they are there,” said Hassan Askari Rizvi, a local security analyst. “And their motive is clear: They want to tell everyone they are kicking and alive.”
In December 2014, a terrorist attack at an army-run school in Peshawar killed about 150 teachers and students. After that, Pakistani officials greatly enhanced security at educational establishments, including erecting walls lined with razor wire and mandating the presence of armed guards at some institutions. Some provinces in Pakistan even authorized teachers to carry firearms in the classroom.
Aamir Iqbal and Haq Nawaz Khan in Charsadda and Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad contributed to this report.
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But there have been repeated warnings that schools remained vulnerable to attack. On Tuesday, parents throughout northwestern Pakistan rushed to pull their children out of school after rumors spread through communities that a terrorist attack on a school might be imminent.
The Taliban also shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head in 2012 while she sat on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, also in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Yousafzai survived, wrote a book about her ordeal, and was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Pakistani Taliban is an off-shoot of the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.
In Pakistan, the group is pushing for the imposition of sharia law. Since its founding in the mid-2000s, more than 50,000 Pakistanis have been killed in terrorist attacks or battles between the military and Islamist militants.
[Taliban also seeks blows against military bases]
In June 2014, after an attack on Karachi’s international airport killed more than two-dozen people, the Pakistani military launched a major operation to drive Islamist militants from their safe havens in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal belt. The operation intensified a year ago after the Peshawar school attack.
Throughout 2015, there had been a marked decline in violence in Pakistan. According to a recent report by the Pak Institute of Peace Studies, 2015 was Pakistan’s safest year since 2007 because terrorist attacks dropped by 48 percent compared to the previous year.
“The spaces for extremists’ apologists in public discussions and mainstream media are gradually shrinking, which contributed in keeping the discourse on counterterrorism focused,” the report concluded.
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The Pakistani Taliban has demonstrated resilience, however. On Tuesday, the group, n, whose leadership is believed to reside in Afghanistan, also claimed responsibility for setting a roadside bomb that killed six people near a military checkpoint in Khyber Agency. A day earlier, five Pakistani soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in the western city of Quetta.
Haq Nawaz Khan in Peshawar, Aamir Iqbal in Charsadda, Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad and Daniela Deane in London contributed to this report.
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Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world
