Taliban School Attackers Had Hit List
When the Taliban launched a heinous attack on a Pakistani school for military families, they did so with a list of children to be targeted and killed first.
Bloomberg reports that the Pakistani Taliban fighters who descended on the school in Peshawar carried a list of young targets along with their explosives and guns. The detail was revealed in an email sent to Bloomberg from the Pakistani Taliban.
The email also suggested that the Taliban knew when and where it could find its targets, because the assault was launched as most of the school gathered for a demonstration on emergency medicine and first aid in a large auditorium.
The Taliban says it was able to kill more than 50 of those targets, the sons of high-ranking and important officers in the Pakistani Army. The attack left 148 people dead. Of those 148, 132 were students. Around 121 people were injured during the eight hour long siege in which seven militants were killed either by gunfire or the detonation of suicide vests.
In one particularly gruesome detail to emerge from the attack, the Taliban burned a teacher to death in front of her horrified students.
The attack has re-energized Pakistani security efforts to degrade and destroy extremist groups operating within its territory. The New York Times reports that in the days immediately after the attack, more than 60 militant fighters were killed in a series of army offensives throughout the country.
The battles took place in Pakistan's territory adjacent to Afghanistan. The poor security situation in both countries allows militants to criss cross the borders seeking safety and coordinating actions. The Times reports that a number of militants were arrested in police operations as well.
Pakistan also hanged two people it accused of being high-ranking militants. Pakistan had in place a temporary ban on the death penalty, enacted in 2008, but the school attack so shocked the country that the punishment was reinstated.
