(PESHAWAR, Pakistan) — A total of 141 people, most of them children, were killed Tuesday when Taliban attackers opened fire indiscriminately at a military-run school in northwestern Pakistan, a Pakistani military official said.
Seven gunmen — some reportedly wearing suicide vests — killed 132 children and nine staff members when they attacked the school in Peshawar, according to the military official. All seven attackers also died, although the details surrounding their deaths are not clear.
As evening arrived, Pakistani officials declared a military operation to clear the school of attackers to be over.
Throughout the day, terrified parents visited area hospitals, frantically searching for their children.
About 1,100 students in grades 1 to 10 attend classes at the school, including many children of military families. Students in green uniforms could be seen on Pakistani television fleeing the school.
Besides those killed in the attack, numerous people were injured, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said earlier. Ambulances were seen transporting the injured after the attack started in the early morning.
Pakistan has been on an offensive, dubbed Zarb-e-Azb, against the Tehreek-e-Taliban, a Pakistani militant group trying to overthrow the government.
The Pakistani Taliban claimed credit for Tuesday's attack as retribution for the government's military operation in North Waziristan, the most volatile part of the country near the border with Afghanistan.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif rushed to Peshawar to show his support for the victims and vowed the attack on the school would not deter the government's fight against the group.
"The government together with the army has started Zarb-e-Azb and it will continue until the terrorism is rooted out from our land," Sharif said. "We also have had discussions with Afghanistan that they and we together fight this terrorism, and this fight will continue. No one should have any doubt about it."
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistan native who survived a 2012 shooting and won the Nobel Peace prize for her efforts to promote education, denounced the attack in a Facebook post on her Malala Fund nonprofit page.
"I am heartbroken by this senseless and cold blooded act of terror in Peshawar that is unfolding before us," she wrote in the statement. "Innocent children in their school have no place in horror such as this."
The United States joined a host of nations, including neighboring India and Afghanistan, in denouncing the attack on the school.
"By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity," President Obama said in a statement. "We stand with the people of Pakistan, and reiterate the commitment of the United States to support the government of Pakistan in its efforts to combat terrorism and extremism and to promote peace and stability in the region."
Even the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan condemned the attack.
"Killing innocent children is against the principals of Afghan Taliban and we condemned," Afghan Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement to the media. "Our thoughts are with the families of those who lost their love ones''
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