A Taliban attack on a school in Peshawar in December 2014 killed over 150 people, mostly children.
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At least four Taliban attackers climbed over the back walls of Bacha Khan University, shot at a security guard and headed for the administration building and student dorms.
There were also reports of two explosions heard from inside the university.
Students told of how he opened fire on gunmen as they rampaged across campus, giving the young people time to flee before he was cut down in a hail of bullets.
Four security guards were among the wounded, according to the Daily Pakistan. “I have no idea about what’s going on but I heard one security official talking on the phone to someone and said many people had been killed and injured”.
Reuters cited a lecturer in the English department as saying that most of the students and staff were in classes when the shooting started.
An assistant professor at the university believed a poetry gathering honoring the man the school was named after might have been the target of the attack.
His son went on to found the Awami National Party, a secular, leftist movement whose vision for Pakistan is starkly opposed to that of the Taliban and other Islamic militants, who for more than a decade have been fighting to overthrow the government and establish a strict Islamic State. The Tehreek-e-Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistani troops and rescue workers gather at the main gate of Bacha Khan University in Charsadda town, some 35 kilometers (21 miles) outside the city of Peshawar, Pakistan, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016. Pakistani Taliban commander Umar Mansoor initially claimed that Taliban militants were responsible for the attack, according to multiple reports, but statements from the group are conflicting. A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle struck a crowded police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing 11 people in an attack that was also claimed by the Taliban.
Four attackers were among those killed in the gunbattle that followed the attack, said Pakistan Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Gen. Asim Bajwa.
Pakistan’s prime minister has vowed to fight to the end and destroy “the menace of terrorism” as a major battle is unfolding in the country’s northwest.
The Pakistani army said the attackers were contained in two university blocks and that four of them have been killed.
“At this stage, we can’t say how many gunmen are inside”, he said.
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Though the Taliban have been weakened since attacks against their stronghold in northwest Pakistan since 2014, the terror group is still capable of carrying out large scale attacks.
