Slaughter in Pakistan: there are no words for this kind of evil

Breaking news this morning from Pakistan: 

At least 126 people, most of them children, were killed on Tuesday when Taliban gunmen stormed a school in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, taking hundreds of students hostage in the bloodiest insurgent attack in the country in years.

Troops surrounded the building and an operation was underway to rescue children still trapped inside, the army said.

Hours into the siege, three explosions were heard inside the military-run high school, and a Reuters journalist at the scene said he heard heavy gunfire.

Outside, as helicopters rumbled overhead, police struggled to hold back distraught parents who were trying to break past a security cordon and get into the school.

Bahramand Khan, director of information for the regional Chief Minister’s Secretariat, said at least 126 people were killed and 122 wounded.

“It may rise,” he said, adding that more than 100 of the dead were school children. A local hospital said the dead and wounded it had seen were aged between 10 and 20 years old.

The hardline Islamist Taliban movement immediately claimed responsibility.

“We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females,” said Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani. “We want them to feel the pain.”

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Pray for all those involved.