Taliban gunmen executed at least 30 people after storming campus while students slept

[superbeets]

[h=1]Blood-soaked bedrooms and bodies littered on stairs: First pictures inside the Pakistan university where Taliban gunmen executed at least 30 people after storming campus while students slept[/h]

• Fanatics stormed Bacha Khan university near Peshawar in the northwest
• Most of the student victims were shot dead at hostel for boys on campus
• Police and special forces swarmed the university from ground and the air
• Chemistry professor hailed hero after firing back at militants to save pupils

 

[superbeets]

Taliban militants stormed a university in volatile northwestern Pakistan today, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens as the army hunted for any gunmen still holed up on the campus.



Fanatics stormed the Bacha Khan university in Charsadda, around 30 miles from the city of Peshawar, in the latest outrage to hit the militant-infested region.



A security official said the death toll could rise to as high as 40 as army commandos cleared out student hostels and classrooms.



Many were apparently shot in the head execution-style as militants armed with AK-47 machine guns stalked the premises.




Victims included students, guards, policemen and at least one teacher, who was hailed a hero after firing back at the attackers to protect his students.

 

[superbeets]

Gunned down room by room: A Pakistani soldier searches a bedroom covered in blood (left) while others find bodies on a stairway (right) after an attack by Taliban militants at Bacha Khan university in northwest Pakistan

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Rescuers move an injured victim at a hospital following an attack by gunmen in the Bacha Khan university in Charsadda, about 50 kilometres from Peshawar, which has left at least 21 people dead and dozens wounded

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Dozens of people were killed and injured after militants armed with AK-47s stalked the university

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Victim: Medical officers treat a man injured in an attack by militant gunmen on Bacha Khan University in Charsadda in northwest Pakistan that has left at least 21 people dead and dozens injured

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An injured man is taken to a hospital in Charsadda, in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province

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A teacher walks with a pair of crutches after being rescued from the university by the Pakistani army

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Pakistani security officials take position outside the Bacha Khan university following the attack

 

[superbeets]

The militants, using the cover of thick, wintry fog, scaled the walls of the premises before entering buildings and opening fire on students and teachers in classrooms and hostels, police said.


Students told media they saw several young men wielding AK-47s storming the university housing where many students were sleeping.


'They came from behind and there was a big commotion,' an unnamed male student told a news channel from a hospital bed in Charsadda's District Hospital.


'We were told by teachers to leave immediately. Some people hid in bathrooms.'




Witness hailed one hero teacher – named by media as Syed Hamid Hussain – fighting back against the intruders, shooting his weapon in a bid to protect his students.


Geology student Zahoor Ahmed said his chemistry lecturer had warned him not to leave the building after the first shots were fired.


'He was holding a pistol in his hand,' he said.


'Then I saw a bullet hit him. I saw two militants were firing. I ran inside and then managed to flee by jumping over the back wall.'

 

[superbeets]

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Soldiers with automatic weapons and rocket launchers take their positions outside the university

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Police and special forces launched a ground and air operation at the university in a bid to shut down the attack

Another student told television reporters he was in class when he heard gunshots.
'We saw three terrorists shouting "Allah is great!" and rushing towards the stairs of our department,' he said.
'One student jumped out of the classroom through the window. We never saw him get up.'
He also described seeing the chemistry professor holding a pistol and firing at the attackers.
'Then we saw him fall down and as the terrorists entered the (registrar) office, we ran away.'
Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain confirmed the lecturer, Dr Hamid, had died.
Television footage showed military vehicles packed with soldiers driving into the campus as helicopters buzzed overhead and ambulances lined up outside the main gate while anxious parents consoled each other.
A senior security officer said 90 per cent of the campus had been secured after a three-hour gunfight with the militants ended, and that 51 people were wounded and four gunmen were killed.
Umar Mansoor, a senior Pakistani Taliban commander and the mastermind of a student massacre in December 2014 at a military-run school in nearby Peshawar, claimed responsibility for the assault and said it involved four of his men.

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Army officials with heavy weapons were seen arriving at the Bacha Khan University in Charsadda after gunmen stormed the campus

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Soldiers enter the Bacha Khan university during the attack by militants

The gunmen attacked as the university prepared to host a poetry recital on this afternoon to commemorate the death anniversary of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a popular ethnic Pashtun independence activist after whom the university is named.
Vice Chancellor Fazal Rahim told reporters that the university teaches over 3,000 students and was hosting an additional 600 visitors on Wednesday for the recital.
Police inspector Saeed Wazir said 70 per cent of the students had been rescued.
'All students have been evacuated from the hostels, but militants are still hiding in different parts of the university and some students and staff are stuck inside,' he said before the firing had stopped, adding that it was unclear how many gunmen were involved.
Shabir Khan, a lecturer in the English department, said he was about to leave his university housing for the department when firing began.
'Most of the students and staff were in classes when the firing began,' Khan said. '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.'

 

[superbeets]

Chemistry professor Syed Hamid Hussain (left) was hailed a hero after firing back against the militants with a handgun in a bid to protect his pupils before being shot dead. Pictured right: Survivors comfort each other

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The bodies of a victims are placed in coffins at a hospital in Charsadda after the gun attack

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Rescue workers move coffins to transport bodies of victims of the gun attack on Bacha Khan University

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Charsadda is located in the country's volatile north-west, around 40km north-east of Peshawar where the Taliban massacre of 130 children occurred in December 2014

 

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Several schools had closed early on the weekend around Peshawar after rumours circulated of a possible attack.
Pakistan, which has suffered from years of jihadist militant violence, has killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under a major crackdown launched after the massacre of school children in December 2014 in Peshawar.
The school attack by six Pakistani Taliban gunmen hit a raw nerve in Pakistan and was seen as having hardened Pakistan's resolve to fight militants along its lawless border with Afghanistan.
'We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,' Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement after todays's attack.
Naik Mohammed, security chief at the university, said the attackers had entered close to a campus guest house.
The 2014 Taliban assault on the Peshawar school was Pakistan's deadliest ever attack, and prompted a crackdown on extremism in Pakistan.
After a public outcry, the military launched an offensive against extremists in the tribal areas where they had previously operated with impunity.

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Army soldiers and police swarmed the university where thousands of students were thought to be on Wednesday morning

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As many as 3,000 people were reported as present at the university when the gunmen arrived

Pakistan's Jinnah Institute said in a report released Tuesday that the National Action Plan (NAP) helped curb extremist violence last year, although targeted attacks against religious minorities spiked in the Muslim nation of some 200 million people.
The university is named after Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, nicknamed Bacha Khan or Pacha Khan.
He was a Pashtun independence activist who campaigned against the rule of the British Raj. January 20 – today – is the 28th anniversary of his death.
The attack came a day after a suicide bomber blew himself up close to a police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 20.
The bomber rammed his motorcycle into a police vehicle next to the roadside checkpoint in the Jamrud area on the edge of Pakistan's volatile Federally Administered Tribal Areas, local government official Munir Khan said.
Last month, a suicide bomber attacked a government office in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 23 people.
[h=3]BACHA KHAN: THE NAMESAKE OF TERROR TARGET UNIVERSITY[/h]Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, nicknamed Bacha Khan or Pacha Khan, was a Pashtun independence activist who campaigned against the rule of the British Raj.
He was a devout Muslim and a political and spiritual leader known for his nonviolent opposition.
Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, Pakistan, was named in honour of the activist who promoted a message of peace and universal brotherhood.
Khan was a close friend of Mohandas Gandhi and was even nicknamed the 'Frontier Gandhi' in British India.

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There are no immediate reports of injuries at the university (pictured)

He was born in 1890 in the town of Utmanzai — not far from Peshawar, in what was then the Northwest Frontier Province of India.
At the age of 20, he opened a mosque school in his hometown, but it was banned by British authorities five years later.
Shortly after meeting Gandhi in 1919 Khan founded the Khudai Khidmatgars or 'Servants of God' to expand his revolutionary work.
He was arrested in 1930 during protests following the famous Salt March which saw British troops open fire on the unarmed crowd.
Khan formed Pakistan's first National opposition party, the Pakistan Azad Party, on 8 May 1948.
He spent much of the 1960s and 1970s either in jail or in exile and died on 20 January 1988 in Peshawar under house arrest.
The political leader was buried at his house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Tens of thousands of mourners attended his funeral, marching through the Khyber Pass from Peshawar to Jalalabad, although it was marred by two bomb explosions killing 15 people.

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A suicide bomber blew himself up close to a police checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 20

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A man mourns at the suicide blast site in northwest Pakistan's Peshawar, where at least ten people died

 

[superbeets]

Radical Islamic Muslim cowardly scum.

 

[ScottL]

Gunned down room by room: A Pakistani soldier searches a bedroom covered in blood (left) while others find bodies on a stairway (right) after an attack by Taliban militants at Bacha Khan university in northwest Pakistan.

The Whitewashing of Barbaric Terrorism
Thank you Reuters and the BBC for turning terrorists into militants. Now everyone who murders people out of pure savagery and sick religious dogma is referred to as a 'militant' by almost every news bureau.