Heartbreaking

The world is no stranger to heinous crimes but nothing is more abominable that the massacre of schoolchildren in Peshawar, a large valley close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border,Tuesday.

This is excerpts from a New York Times report:

“First the Pakistani Taliban bombed or burned over 1,000 schools. Then they shot Malala Yousafzai, the teenage advocate for girls’ rights.

“But on Tuesday, the Taliban took their war on education to a ruthless new low with an assault on a crowded school in Peshawar that killed 145 people — 132 of them uniformed schoolchildren — in the deadliest single attack in the group’s history.

“During an eight-hour rampage at the Army Public School and Degree College, a team of nine Taliban gunmen stormed through the corridors and assembly hall, firing at random and throwing grenades. Some of the 1,100 students at the school were lined up and slaughtered with shots to the head. Others were gunned down as they cowered under their desks, or forced to watch as their teachers were riddled with bullets.”

The Taliban, a brutal Islamist fundamentalist movement in Pakistan and Afghanistan, proudly claimed responsibility for the heinous crime.

NY Times said, “A Taliban spokesman said the attack had been retaliation for the continuing military operation against the group in the North Waziristan tribal region.”

The UK-based Daily Mail reported that the depraved killers even proudly posed for photos in front of a Taliban banner declaring ‘There is no God but Allah.’

“Clutching an array of rocket launchers and machine guns, the crazed gunmen are shown both in traditional clothing of Taliban fighters and the Pakistan military uniforms they wore to avoid suspicion immediately before storming the Army School in Peshawar.

“The pictures – apparently taken in the hours before Tuesday’s attack – were released yesterday by the Taliban, together with a threat to carry out similar attacks despite the outrage at the horrific, carefully planned massacre in which 132 children and more than a dozen teachers were killed.“

The Taliban, whose creation was supported by Pakistan and the United States Central Intelligence Agency in the mid 1990s against the Soviets, tried to justify the attack by claiming that the Pakistani army has long killed the innocent children and families of Taliban fighters.

The Daily Mail said “The Peshawar atrocity is said to have been ordered by Maulana Fazlullah, head of the Taliban in Pakistan and the man who ordered the shooting of teenage education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“The firebrand militant, whose thick black beard reaches halfway down his chest, took control of the Pakistani Taliban 13 months ago. It is thought the massacre may have been his barbaric revenge for Malala, 17, being award the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year.”

Pakistan is in a funeral mood now. The Daily Mail reported that the best attended of the funerals was that of teacher Afsha Ahmed, 24, who confronted the gunmen when they burst into her classroom and told them: ‘You can only kill my students over my dead body.’ She was burned alive as she stood in front of her pupils.

Accounts of the funeral scenes are both harrowing and heartbreaking with “ dozens of small wooden coffins carried for burial together with those of their teachers. Rows of children and fellow pupils stood in silence, some weeping, and their hands clasped in front of them beside the lines of caskets draped in blankets.”

A CNN report quoted Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif saying,“The smaller the coffin, the heavier it is to carry it. And we’ve been carrying smaller coffins today, more than a hundred small coffins we’ve been carrying, the Pakistani nation.”

We bow our heads in prayer.