The Peshawar Massacre: Nation vs Taliban
Devastating Peshawar School Massacre: Agony, Animosity, and Hope For Nation to Address Taliban Threat
Ashley Audette – Team Member for the Afghanistan-Pakistan Region
On December 16, 2014 took place the deadliest terror attack to wreak havoc in Pakistan, surpassing even the 2007 Karachi bombing that took the lives of 139 people while maiming and injuring 450 others. The Peshawar school massacre, carried out by only 9 gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) conducted the 9 hour long massacre that took 145 lives, 132 of which were children attending school, ranging in age from eight to eighteen.
After scaling the walls of the school around 10:00 am that morning, the focus of the intruders, according to Taliban spokesperson Mohammed Khurrassani, was the killing of older students in attendance there. Taliban members had “300 to 400 people under their custody at one point” but their intention was not the taking of hostages, but the shooting to kill rather than collect captives. The indiscriminate target of everyone and anyone inside caused the most damage. They first entered a gymnasium where many were writing exams and had been gunned down in minutes, Pakistani military spokesperson General Asim Bajwa said. The attack began as a car bomb detonated behind the school, intended to create a diversion that would occupy the school’s security personnel while the assailants entered the building. This diversion was able to occupy security forces for over 15 minutes while the attack was underway, attacking first the classrooms of 8th and 9th grade children. As demonstrated in many attacks carried out in the past, the Taliban are not afraid nor do they hold back on their violence against children. Most notably, the 2012 attack on Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and the 2009 truck bombing that took the lives of more than 100 people in a busy marketplace frequented dominantly by women and children.
Analysts suggest that after years of carnage via car bombings, suicide attacks in mosques, hotels and military bases, that the Peshawar massacre could be breaking point. Widespread public outrage followed, and this may signal a “decisive turn in the nation’s reluctance to fully address the Taliban”. Primarily in Pakistan’s tribal regions, where the reach of the government is far from influential, Taliban are able to conduct and plan out their next action, with little coming from the Sharif government in terms of addressing the matter. Despite the now outrage over the recent massacre, past attacks in the region that brought about equal condemnation from both public and government figures has brought little but empty vows of actions, and the rumors of Pakistan’s “playing double game” with its domestic Islamist forces that may continue.
Almost immediately the Taliban asserted responsibility of the attack, saying the gunmen had been sent as revenge for a recent Pakistani military action against the TTP and their allies in the northern tribal regions. A large majority of the children in attendance at Peshawar school were relatives of army and military personnel, which experts say may have played a factor in the targeting of the attack. The battle lasted just over 9 hours, and ended finally with the swift execution of the 9 militants by the Pakistani military, leaving officials the task of rescue and identification of victims.
