Militants storm Pakistani University, kill 19 and injure 17.

Security forces have ended a gun and bomb attack on a university in north-west Pakistan in which 19 people were killed and 17 injured.Four suspected attackers also died in a battle that lasted nearly three hours at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda.There are conflicting reports about whether Pakistan Taliban militants carried out the assault.The group killed 130 students at a school in the city of Peshawar, 50km (30 miles) from Charsadda, in 2014.About 3,000 students are enrolled at Bacha Khan but hundreds of visitors were also expected on Wednesday for a poetry event.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said in a statement, quoted by Reuters news agency: "We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland."It could have been much worse - M Ilyas Khan, BBC News, IslamabadThere have been conflicting claims about who could be involved in the attack, a sign of the kaleidoscopic mix of militant networks evolving along the Pakistan-Afghan border region in the north.The attack comes amid a sudden spike in militant violence in Pakistan, after a year of relative peace and quiet largely attributed to a 2014 military operation against militant sanctuaries in Waziristan. Questions are now being raised over whether that operation really destroyed the ability of militants to regroup and strike at will.The attack is reminiscent of the December 2014 attack on a school in Peshawar in which more than 150 people, mostly schoolboys, were killed. But damage to life and property this time has been much less, mainly due to swift action by the local police, but also because of the fact that the university had its own team of more than 50 trained security guards on duty who first confronted the attackers.A dense fog that reduced visibility to less than 10m may also have been a factor, as one police officer explained, because it put the attackers at a disadvantage against the university guards who knew the premises better.Lecturer shot"The operation is over and the university has been cleared," Pakistani army spokesman Gen Asim Bajwa told Reuters news agency. "Four gunmen have been killed."The attackers struck at around 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT), apparently climbing over a back wall under cover of the thick winter fog.Intense gunfire and explosions were heard as security guards fought the attackers."I personally heard two explosions," an unidentified eyewitness told Pakistan's Geo TV.

A senior Taliban commander, Umar Mansoor, told media that the attack was in response to a military offensive against militant strongholds. He said four suicide attackers had carried out the attack.However, the group's main spokesman, Mohammad Khurasani, later told the BBC the Taliban had not been involved. He condemned the attack as "un-Islamic".An assistant professor at the university, Dr Shakoor, told the BBC he had turned back from the main gate of the campus after being told it was under attack.Most of the students and members of the faculty would probably still not have arrived when the attack started, he said

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35359072
It will be pain for both countries if we dont get rid of them scummy militants, they went in there to die so they didn't care how many lives they took.

Pakistan's long-term policy of supporting and providing sanctuary to militants in the frontier provinces is coming back to bite it. The allowed places like North Waziristan to become lawless bases for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and they are reaping the "reward".

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence has for years supported the Afghan Taliban (in fact, they essentially created it) as they calculated it was vital to their strategic security to control Afghanistan. The Pakistani Army determined that to have any chance (even very small) of prevailing in a war against India, their armoured divisions would need to be able to carry out a defence-in-depth, and to be able to withdraw into the Afghan Pashtun hinterlands, before counterattacking.

This policy of controling an Islamist emirate in Afghanistan would also put at their disposal some tens of thousands of jihadi auxiliaries who would help fight Indian troops. All through the years of the war on Terror, Pakistani armed forces and intelligence accepted billions from the US as payment to fight terror while at the same time providing materiel, safehaven and advice to the Afghan Taliban.

Some years ago, a new Taliban faction called the Pakistani Taliban (or TTP; Tehrek-i-Taliban) formed. In recent years, TTP has been supported by Afghan intelligence to get back at Pakistani for supporting the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network (which fights with the Taliban). All four groups (TTP, Afghan Taliban, Al-Qaeda and Haqqani Network) operated around the same areas in the Pashtun border hinterlands in Pakistan around Waziristan.

Finally in the last couple of years, Pakistan has become serious about clearing out the Waziristan tribal areas of militants and launched an operation called Zarb-e-Azb (swift, cutting blow). They had some successes and also suffered many casualties. TTP also carried out that attack on a school that catered to the children of army officers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Peshawar_school_massacre). TTP has become increasingly brazen, and once you attack the Pakistan army's kids you cross a line. I hope, for Pakistan's sake, that they do not backslide. They have to continue clearing out the tribal areas.

The benefit of their clearing these areas is also likely to be that the Afghan government starts to make real progress against the Afghan Taliban. One can hope

I read some of your post and I agree, Pakistan support for Afghanistan Taliban has hindered my country, but they'll now see how bad it is when stuff like this happens. In my opinion Pakistan can't play a game where they allow Afghanistan Taliban to roam whilst killing there own, it's a complex situation as militants cross the border easy, however the militants are extremely troubling for us aswell, these brainwashed fools need to stop, and we both need to come to a table and discuss peace talks, only then there'll be peace, however I hope that Pakistan doesn't play games, if the government do then they'll see the prize that they don't wont. My solution is that Pakistan wipe out and stop any support for the Taliban in Afghanistan, if they do that, then the Taliban in Pakistan will also slowly die down. Border closing is not an option as many Afghan and Pakistan families travel across. The issue with Waziristan is that they want to live there own way, not under government control, I'd suggest the government get someone who understand the Waziri people and aids governing the region.

X

Excellent comment, I completely agree with everything you've said. I really hope that the public opinion in Pakistan has completely turned against both Talibans, Afghan and TTP.

The thing is, I think what the Pakistan military has been worried about (that an independent Afghanistan will not be friendly to them, or a danger if there's a way with India) is not going to be as bad as they think, not at all. A war between Pakistan and India is, in my view, very unlikely and I think in future Pakistan and Afghanistan could be great trading partners.

My view is with the current peace process between India and Pakistan, that Pakistani will be much less concerned about ensuring Afghanistan is militarily allied to them, and hopefully this will allow all sides to co-operate on the terrorism issue. If Pakistan and Afghanistan are working together, I think they could very effectively shut down the militants

Just goes to show that appeasing extremists does absolutely nothing to prevent terrorism in your country. Not that anybody who isn't a moron didn't already know this, but we do have a lot of morons on TSR (just look at the Paris threads for example) so......

As terrible as these incidents in Pakistan are, the fact is that Pakistan cultivated and exported Islamic terrorism for its own ends, and is now facing the consequences of that strategy in its own streets.