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| Pakistani protests in the wake of the school attack |
By Muhammad Akbar Notezai
Twelve months after the slaughter at Army Public School, where does Pakistan stand on terrorism?
On December 16, 2014, the Taliban launched the deadliest attack in Pakistan’s history, killing at least 148 people, including 132 schoolchildren, at the Army Public School in Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Mohammad Khorasani, also known as Omer Khorasan, who heads the Jamatul Ahrar, a faction of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) led by Maulana Fazllula, quickly accepted responsibility for the attack. A spokesperson for the Jamatul Ahrar said the assault was in retaliation for the ongoing Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan. He further claimed that the school had been targeted because “almost all students are the children of army personnel.”
The attack on the Army Public School was unequivocally condemned, nationally and internationally. Even the Afghan Taliban weighed in, calling it “un-Islamic.” Hafiz Saeed chief of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, whom India accuses of masterminding the 2008 terrorist attacks on Mumbai, also expressed outrage. He called the murder of children “cowardly behavior” and said that Islam “never taught us to kill innocent children and women even in war.”
Incidentally, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was also home to Malala Yousafzai, the youngest-ever Nobel Prize Laureate. She was reportedly singled out and shot in the head on October 9, 2012 by the TTP as she rode to school in a van with other girls. Malala luckily survived. The TTP was founded in 2007 in the tribal areas of Pakistan, and has links with the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
“I could not control my tears. I cannot explain but I wept. I know it was against the rules of our profession but it was the moment to break the rules.” One of the gravediggers, Mr. Taj Muhammad, at Peshawar’s largest graveyard was speaking to the Associated Press. He added, “I have buried bodies of the deceased of different ages, sizes, and weights,” He told AP. “Those small bodies I have been burying since yesterday felt much heavier than any of the big ones I have buried before.”
Read the full story at The Diplomat