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Peshawar army school reopens after massacre

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Security is tight as children return to school where the Pakistani Taliban killed 141 people last month.

More than 130 young students were killed in the attack, the deadliest in Pakistan's history [Reuters]

More than 130 young students were killed in the attack, the deadliest in Pakistan’s history [Reuters]

by Asad Hashim, Al Jazeera

Peshawar, Pakistan: Peshawar’s Army Public School, the site of a massacre that killed 141 people almost a month ago, has reopened amid tight security in the capital of Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Helicopters flew overhead as dozens of army soldiers patrolled the streets around the APS, tightly screening entry and exit points to the school, early on Monday morning.

Grim-faced soldiers stood guard as hundreds of children and their parents streamed into the school, where a memorial service was held in the presence of the country’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif.

The mood among the students was sombre, but defiant, as they entered the premises. Many of the children were brought to the school in army trucks, which doubled up as school buses on the first day of school in the new year.

Access to the school was tightly controlled, with army soldiers standing guard on several pickets established in the streets around the school, as well at the graveyard immediately adjacent to it.

Deadliest attack

Particular attention was paid to the locality behind the school, from where at least seven gunmen broke into the premises on December 16, in an attack that saw them go room by room, killing 141 people in all, the deadliest attack in Pakistan’s history.

More than 130 of those killed were students, many of them executed in their classrooms and in the school’s main auditorium.

In the wake of the attack, Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in what it called “terrorism cases”, and constituted military courts to try said cases.

The army also stepped up ongoing military operations in the country’s tribal areas, where troops have been battling the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and its allies since June.

The TTP claimed responsibility for the attack on the school in Peshawar, saying it was carried out in “revenge” for the alleged killing of women and children in the tribal areas by the military.

‘Challenging the TTP’

“I think it is a good thing that the school is reopening,” Tariq Aziz, 30, whose younger brother, Asad, was killed in the attack, told Al Jazeera. “Already time has been wasted, and the students’ studies are suffering.”

“Even if we are not safe, what can we do? We have to send our children to school. For the sake of their education.”

Hasan Syed, 10, survived the attack, and was one of those who went back to the school on Monday.

“I will not be afraid of going back – I will go back to the school,” he told Al Jazeera. “This determination is because my cousin [Asad Aziz] was martyred. If I go to school, it is like I am challenging the terrorists.”

The reopening of the APS and other schools across Pakistan has been delayed several times, as authorities race to verify that adequate security arrangements are in place.

On Monday, thousands of schools reopened across the country, but many remained shut, as the government had not yet issued them certificates of approval for commencement of classes.

In Peshawar, 118 schools reopened on Monday, while a further 1,380 remained shut.

Pieces of a Rainbow lie scattered across the land…

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Peshawar_School_Bloody_Shoe

by Malavika

My heart leaps up when I behold,
A Rainbow in the sky,
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The Child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

I like to think that when Wordsworth wrote the lines, his heart was full of indescribable joy. The feeling of joy we all so instinctively hang on to, cling to for all we are worth. Which we seek to revive through smell and feel. That smell of freshly cut grass in the breeze, the salty warmth of the sea or of aromas from a passing kitchen, a spicy pickle, a familiar perfume from old boxes of clothes. The feel of velvet, which one so rarely sees these days, reminds me of my grandmother, her blouses, the fabric of which I loved to feel shifting under the patterns my young fingers drew on them, bent fibres displaying shifting dark and light lines across the cloth. The scent of winter chill in the pine forests of the mountains flooded my mind when I was just a child, and till today the slightest hint of cold pine in the air calms my body and soul, lifting me deep into a meditative silence in a way nothing else can.

Like Freud knew, when we search for the depths of our needs, we find the roots of all joys, of all happiness deeply intertwined with the fabric of our youth. And the fears and unhappiness as well. What I felt when I was young, is what has shaped me as a woman. And what we face in our youth, we often spend lifetimes either building upon, or tearing down. It is our childhoods that determine our destiny’s, the choices we make and where we seek happiness and warmth. For some family warmth is what is home, for others it is the freedom of open spaces. For some warmth is the vague familiarity of rough relationships, for others, the guidance of familial commitments. And for many, childhood is simply hand to mouth survival, life continuing for generations to be about simply and sadly, life and death.

The deep and horrendous loss of so many young lives under fire from the toxicity of the environment in which they grew, reflects the growing disorder in the world around us. Now more than ever the Darwinian wisdom, survival of the fittest seems to be shaping civilization. Descriptions of fitness ranging from considerations of physical and economic strength, to considered moral and spiritual superiorities. And at the front of the firing line stand, as always, the week, the handicapped and the poor. Amongst these then, the women and the children are particularly vulnerable, and more often than not, targeted by those with the strength and flawed bravado, to impose.

What will impact us all, and will shape lives for decades to come much more than the deaths caused by the collapse of a society in Peshawar on that tragic day of December, will be the young who will carry this incident emblazoned upon their souls. How many of the children who saw their friends fall will forever fear, avoid and shape their lives around the sounds of ricocheting bullets. How many will hate that need to fear, how many will hate others for making them fear. Not all can be a Malala, nor should all need to be. As a society we are failing, failing to protect the most vulnerable almost deliberately, and worse, allowing every man with a stick, to use them for target practice. From Nirbhaya to Peshawar, we as a society have failed. There is no doubt about that. But in time nature finds its balance. We will pay, each one of us, for this. The reason being the strength of the force which shapes the growth and fall of civilizations. The undeniable fact that every child grows up to become a man.

Pakistan to execute 500 terror convicts

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The decision to reinstate the death penalty for terror cases following a school massacre is condemned by human rights groups.

The feet of a victim of a Taliban attack in a school are tied together at a local hospital in Peshawar — AP

The feet of a victim of a Taliban attack in a school are tied together at a local hospital in Peshawar — AP

by Sky News

Pakistan plans to execute around 500 militants after the government lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in terror cases.

It comes after Taliban gunmen killed 149 people, including 133 children, in a school massacre in the northwestern city of Peshawar last week.

Six militants have been hanged since Friday amid rising public anger over the slaughter.

Around nine gunmen stormed the army-run school on 16 December taking teachers and students hostage and killing them in classrooms.

After the deadliest terror attack in Pakistani history, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ended the six-year moratorium on the death penalty, reinstating it for terrorism-related cases.

“Interior ministry has finalised the cases of 500 convicts who have exhausted all the appeals, their mercy petitions have been turned down by the president and their executions will take place in coming weeks,” a senior government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Of the six hanged so far, five were involved in a failed attempt to assassinate the then-military ruler Pervez Musharraf in 2003, while one was involved in a 2009 attack on army headquarters.

Police, troops and paramilitary Rangers have been deployed across the country and airports and prisons put on red alert as the executions take place and troops intensify operations against Taliban militants in northwestern tribal areas.

Mr Sharif has ordered the attorney general’s office to “actively pursue” capital cases currently in the courts, a government spokesman said.

The decision to reinstate executions has been condemned by human rights groups, with the United Nations also calling for it to reconsider.

Human Rights Watch described the executions “a craven politicised reaction to the Peshawar killings” and demanded that no further hangings be carried out.

Pakistan began its de facto moratorium on civilian executions in 2008, but hanging remains on the statute books and judges continue to pass death sentences.

Before Friday’s resumption, only one person had been executed since then – a soldier convicted by a court martial and hanged in November 2012.

Schools in Kashmir issue advisory after Peshawar attack

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Fearing Peshawar-like attack across disputed Himalayan state of Indian administered Kashmir, prominent schools here on Friday issued advisory, issuing guidelines to the students and parents on dealing with such situations.

Fearing Peshawar-like attack across disputed Himalayan state of Indian administered Kashmir, prominent schools here on Friday issued advisory, issuing guidelines to the students and parents on dealing with such situations.

Srinagar: Fearing Peshawar-like attack across Jammu & Kashmir, prominent schools here on Friday issued advisory, issuing guidelines to the students and parents on dealing with such situations.

“Security and safety are primary concerns for all of us. All the children have the right to live in a secure environment. Being exposed to violence can have a negative impact on children’s health, sense of safety, security and their feelings about the future,” Principal at prominent Srinagar based Delhi Public School, Athwajan, Kusam Warikoo said in a communique issued to guardians. Warikoo asked parents to respected some guidelines by for ensuring “better security”

“No child will be allowed to board the bus without their Identity Cards. No electronic gadgets will be allowed in the school, if confiscated it will not be returned,” she wrote to them (parents).

The school authorities said that the students will be allowed only to carry their study material and their lunch in the school bag.

Similar communication has been issued by many other Srinagar based schools working under the aegis of CBSE.

Meanwhile Indian home ministry on Friday issued an advisory to all states and Union territories reiterating CBSE’s 2010 guidelines to schools on dealing with “terror” situations.

The standard operating procedures (SOPs), apprise the school management on how to deal with kidnappings outside the school gate, random firing from road outside the school, armed intrusions followed by hostage taking and explosive objects and seek regular mock drills at schools to test their preparedness against possible strikes.

A set of guidelines issued to the prominent schools across India has urged the authorities to remain vigilant and also use telephone connectivity from the gate, CCTV systems along the boundary and inside, walkie-talkie communication between guards, alarm system and a centralized public announcement system are some of the other requirements to make the school secure.

The government has said that the in the event of kidnapping of children at the time of arrival/departure, the guards must rush children outside inside the school and close the gates, besides asking vehicles carrying children to leave the area. Mock drills should be conducted to ensure that a system is in place to set off the alarm, alert the police and respond to medical emergencies.

“If there is bomb scare, children should not be allowed to collect in one place without properly checking the area,” a guideline booklet book issued by Indian home ministry said.

‘Outraged camp’

Many Kashmiri leaders are outraged and strongly condemned the Peshawar incident wherein the Taliban stormed a military-run school in northwest Pakistan and gunned down over 145 people, most of them children, in one of the country’s deadliest attacks in recent weeks.

Huriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani while terming the attacks barbaric, said waging war against such elements is the duty of every Muslim.

Geelani said that there is no need to prove that those claiming to fight for Islam and are involved in such cowardly acts are in actual the biggest enemies of Islam and Muslims. He said that the attacks are inhuman and those involved in the incidents must be served the stern punishment.

Kashmir chief cleric and Huriyat Conference (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq while condemning the killings of school children said that those involved in the cowardly acts cannot be the well-wishers of Islam and Pakistan. Huriyat Conference leader Shabir Ahmad Shah condemned the attack saying that the killings are tantamount of killing the whole humanity.

(With inputs from Authintmail)

Moazzam Begg on Peshawar massacre: All have lost moral high ground

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Peshawar_School_Bloody_Shoe

by Moazzam Begg

It’s not often that you’ll hear the Islamic Emirate (or the Afghan Taliban) condemning their Pakistani namesakes but that is precisely what happened on Tuesday when the horrific attack was carried out by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the city of Peshawar, writes.

Family blood feuds were fairly common when I lived in Peshawar many years ago but would only extend to individuals within clans and tribes. Children may have been abducted for ransoms but killing was rare. Today, it’s all out, unrelenting war with no rules.

The lives of all our children are precious: children of ruthless politicians, children of torture victims, children of terror suspects, children of anti terror SWAT officers, children of drone operators, children of soldiers, children of judges, children of farmers and children of the homeless and hopeless.

The children of our friend and the children of our enemy are still innocent. That is why the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) explicitly forbade targeting them, especially in times of war. Every law based on any aspect of human decency since concurs with this view.

The product of terror, torture and violence is more of the same. To end it we must we must stop regarding understanding and explanations as “justification.” Every crime has a motive, a mens rea behind it, even the most despicable ones.

“Sick and twisted act”

The deliberate killing of children in Peshawar was a twisted and sick act. But this sickness has developed as a direct result of indiscriminate killing of faceless terrorist suspects and their families.

Recent reports have shown how 26 children were killed as collateral damage in trying to unsuccessfully kill one man, namely Aymanal-Zawahiri. Countless other attacks have caused “collateral damage” in Pakistani’s war in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and beyond have lead to deaths of thousands. Statistics and testimonies are hard to come by because of fear of further targeting and woeful under-reporting.

I understand there is a difference between deliberately targeting children, which is the most abhorrent of acts I can think of (how can a man point a gun at a child and pull the trigger?) and the targeting of suspects knowing and accepting that children may be killed in pursuit of the latter. However, in both cases it is accepted by the perpetrators that children will (or are likely to) be killed.

When I was evacuating from Afghanistan in 2001 with my own children under heavy US bombardment thousands of innocent civilians, many of them children, were shredded to pieces by 15,000 lb “daisy-cutter” bombs, vacuum bombs, smart bombs, cluster bombs, tomahawk cruise and “hellfire” missiles. The victims were often identifiable only by the clothes their family members recognized or by body parts. Exact numbers of casualties are still unknown. There was never an outcry for their children.

It is time to stop this cycle of uncontrolled rage and internecine violence that will only drive us to the pits of hell. Incessant calls for revenge each time need to be tempered with reflections on the consequences of what that means. There are no winners in this.

Instead, let the killers of these children look upon the faces of their victims and then ask themselves why they truly did it. Religion has nothing to do with it. If it had would the killers risk the eternal damnation Allah has promised for those who kill unjustly? For that is His solemn promise.

He may forgive those who repent if He wishes but how can the families of these child victims be expected to do such a thing? After all the killers couldn’t forgive, so why should they expect anything but retribution? So the vicious circle continues like the Pashtun code of badal (revenge – like for like) only in a more vicious, unremitting way.

Perhaps it cannot be stopped; its been going on for 13 years, but someone has to try. Let drone operators and pilots who drop bombs from thousands of feet on their victims see the carnage on the ground: indistinguishable body pieces in rural villages where poverty and illiteracy is still the greatest unacknowledged enemy.

Let them see what their hands have caused and how the circle of violence they began with the press of a button ended with the lives of mangled bodies of men, women and innocent children. Let the murderers of children look at the corpses of the young lives they snuffed out and remember how they killed innocence and destroyed their own hereafter in the process. Before they embark on the same road to disaster let those considering this path look closely at the faces of children in their own family.

War on terror

Before the “war on terror” Pakistan had a reputation for world-class corruption – from the government all the way to the cricket pitch and everything in between. After the war on terror this was followed by enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, drone strikes and full scale military operations which led to unprecedented levels of extremism, terrorism, sectarianism and ultimately the targeting of schools and children.

It has descended to depths few could have envisaged before the war on terror started.

It was Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agents who, along with the CIA stormed into my house in Islamabad in the middle of the night and carried me away, hooded and shackled in front of my children and handed me over without any judicial process to the US military in 2002. The same was done to hundreds of others, for bounty money.

In Bagram CIA agents waived pictures of my children in front of my face as they beat me and threatened to send me to Syria or Egypt while a woman who I thought was my wife screamed in agony in the next cell. I would have done anything to stop them. At that moment my family and children were more precious to me than theirs’ were to them.

And they must’ve thought likewise. I sometimes overheard them talking to their kids, how they’d missed their birthdays because they were here in this Afghan hellhole [Bagram] interrogating scumbag terrorists like us.

The truth is that we all love our children and they (mostly) love us right back, the best of us and the worst of us. It is their innocence that reminds us often of our flaws, our guilt even. Tuesday’s killings were a stark reminder of that.

All who claimed the moral high ground have lost it, the ones who kill children in the name of democracy and the ones who retaliate in the name of Islam. The ideology doesn’t matter – not when the sacred is de-sanctified like this.

It is actions to end the cycle of violence, at least on the children, which are needed now more than anything. Otherwise words mean nothing.

Pakistan school attack: years of inaction on terror led to this atrocity

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Protestors gather in the wake of the attack. EPA/T Mughal

Protestors gather in the wake of the attack. EPA/T Mughal

by Talat Farooq, The Conversation

The shock waves from a brutal terror attack that claimed the lives of more than 130 children in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar are being felt around the world.

The Taliban assault, which began on Tuesday morning, has claimed the lives of at least 141 people. Across social media people expressed their horror and sympathy. From Pakistan to the UK, relatives of children attending the Army Public School were anxiously awaiting news.

The attack is being seen as one of the worst in nearly a decade of unabated violence in the country that has killed more than 55,000 Pakistanis – most of whom were civilians.

The Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, has confirmed that it was responsible for the attack and said the school was hit in response to army operations that have been taking place in the tribal areas.

Background to the attack

Over the past six months hundreds of Taliban fighters have been killed since a full-fledged military operation called Zarb-e-Azbwas launched. This has involved bombing the North Waziristan and Khyber areas in a bid to stamp out insurgencies.

Zarb-e-Azb was launched on June 15 2014 after talks between the Taliban and the government failed and a terrorist attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi left 39 dead, including all 10 gunmen.

The operation has been regarded as successful so far. The main hubs of militant activity have been cleared from North Waziristan and Khyber. And last week, the army gave the go-ahead for civilian authorities to start returning more than one million displaced people to North Waziristan.

But while the military side of the operation has met its targets, the political contribution made by successive governments has been less than satisfactory. The Pakistan Muslim League, in power since 2013, has long argued that dialogue with the Taliban is the preferred option. But this has meant failing to take any real ownership of the war that was raging regardless.

Just days after Zarb-e-Azb started, protesters associated with the political party Pakistan Awami Tehrik were killed in a violent clash with the Punjab police in Lahore, setting the stage for major political turmoil.

The situation worsened as Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf party started to accuse the PML government of electoral fraud in the elections of May 2013. Since August 2014, the PTI has continued to carry out protests, sit-ins and shut-downs in major cities. For its part, the government has failed to seriously resolve the issue through meaningful negotiations.

Failure to act

There has been a consistent lack of sufficient political will and seriousness on the part of the government to fully implement Pakistan’s anti-terrorism laws. Not a single convicted terrorist has so far been punished even though Pakistan carries the death penalty for such crimes.

According to experts, a backlog of cases, the absence of a proper mechanism to monitor religious schools, the proliferation of mobile phones in prisons, over-reliance on witnesses rather than forensics by the police and a lack of information sharing between civil and military intelligence agencies are just some of the major weaknesses and problems encountered in Pakistan’s anti-terrorism investigations.

Institutionalised corruption and political interference has also seriously undermined the capacity of civilian law enforcement agencies to tackle the terrorist threat. The government administrations have therefore proved to be poorly equipped to cope with the demands of unconventional warfare and have failed to systematically dismantle sleeper-cells within the country.

This attack is likely to have serious repercussions within and beyond Pakistani territory. At the domestic level the public – already fed up with perennial energy crisis and rising inflation – is bound to lose whatever faith it may have had in the government’s current approach to tackling internal security threats. None of this bodes well for the democratic process in a country that has had 32 years of military rule since its creation 67 years ago.

Talat Farooq is a Research Associate at University of Birmingham.

The Conversation

Modi speaks to Sharif, says India stands firmly with Pakistan

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Pakistani parents react near the site of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. At least 130 people were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in northwest Pakistan, officials said. AFP PHOTO/ A MAJEED

Pakistani parents react near the site of an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar on December 16, 2014. At least 130 people were killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in northwest Pakistan, officials said. AFP PHOTO/ A MAJEED

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Tuesday evening spoke with his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif over phone and offered his deepest condolences for the dastardly terror attack on a school in Peshawar. He said India was ready to provide all assistance during this hour of grief.

The prime minister spoke to Sharif after the latter returned from a visit to the school where around 140 people, mostly children, were slaughtered by Taliban gunmen.

“India stands firmly with Pakistan in fight against terror. Told PM Sharif we are ready to provide all assistance during this hour of grief,” he tweeted.

External affairs spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin in a tweet posted the prime minister’s statement during his talk with Sharif, which said Modi condemned in the strongest terms the brutal terrorist attack in Peshawar.

Modi said the “savage killing of innocent children, who are the epitome of the finest human values, in a temple of learning was not only an attack against Pakistan, but an assault against the entire humanity”.

“At a time when the world is getting disturbingly accustomed to acts of terror, this terrible tragedy has shaken the conscience of the world,” he said.

“He said the people of India shared the heart rending pain and sorrow of the bereaved families and the people of Pakistan and stood with them in solidarity in this hour of immeasurable grief.

“He (Modi) also hoped that the children who had witnessed the horrific attack and loss of their friends would come through this trauma with counselling.”

Modi told Sharif that “this moment of shared pain and mourning is also a call for our two countries and all those who believe in humanity to join hands to decisively and comprehensively defeat terrorism, so that the children in Pakistan, India and elsewhere do not have to face a future darkened by the lengthening shadow of terrorism”.

Earlier in the day, Modi tweeted his condemnation, saying: “It is a senseless act of unspeakable brutality that has claimed lives of the most innocent of human beings – young children in their school. My heart goes out to everyone who lost their loved ones today. We share their pain & offer our deepest condolences,” he said.

(IANS)

Pakistan Taliban storm Peshawar school, 130 killed

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The feet of a victim of a Taliban attack in a school are tied together at a local hospital in Peshawar — AP

The feet of a victim of a Taliban attack in a school are tied together at a local hospital in Peshawar — AP

by BBC

At least 126 people, mostly children, have been killed in a Taliban assault on an army-run school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, officials say.

Five or six militants are said to have entered the building. Five are reported to have been killed, at least one of them in a suicide blast.

The army says most of the school’s 500 students have been evacuated. It is not clear how many are being held hostage.

The attack is being seen as one of the worst yet in Pakistan.

The BBC’s Aamer Ahmed Khan in Islamabad says the killing of schoolchildren has caused unprecedented shock.

Thousands of Pakistanis have been killed in militant violence in recent years.

A spokesman for the militants says the school was targeted in response to army operations.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters are thought to have died in a recent military offensive in North Waziristan and the nearby Khyber area.

A student cries on a man’s shoulder, after he was rescued from the Army Public School – Reuters

Many of the casualties were reportedly caused by a suicide blast. At least 80 of the dead are said to be children.

The attack started at 10:00 local time (05:00 GMT). Mudassir Awan, a worker at the school, said he saw six people scaling the walls of the school.

“We thought it must be the children playing some game,” he told Reuters news agency. “But then we saw a lot of firearms with them.

“As soon as the firing started, we ran to our classrooms,” he said. “They were entering every class and they were killing the children.”

A school worker and a student interviewed by the local Geo TV station said the attackers had entered the Army Public School’s auditorium, where a military team was conducting first-aid training for students.

Locals said they also heard the screams of students and teachers. The dead are said to include teachers, as well as a paramilitary soldier.

Gunfire and loud explosions were heard as security forces hunted down the militants.

Ambulances have been carrying the injured to nearby hospitals. A helicopter is also in the area. Major roads in Peshawar in the city have been sealed off.

A doctor at the local Lady Reading hospital said many of the students were in “very bad condition”, with severe head wounds.

Frantic parents are gathering at hospitals to find out if their children are safe.

The school is at the edge of a military cantonment in Peshawar, which has seen some of the worst of the violence during a Taliban insurgency in recent years.

Many of the students were the children of military personnel. Most of them would have been aged 16 or under.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has just arrived in Peshawar, described the attack as a “national tragedy”.

The Pakistani opposition politician and former cricket captain Imran Khan condemned the attack as “utter barbarism”.

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