Major militant attacks in Pakistan in recent years

Pakistan has been gripped by an insurgency for more than a decade, an internal war with the Taleban and other radical groups that has killed tens of thousands of civilians and security personnel since successive governments in Islamabad joined the United States and its allies in a war against Al Qaeda, the Taleban and extremism in 2001. Tuesday’s school attack, which took the lives of at least 126 people, was among the worst in a decade, and follows last summer’s government offensive against extremist strongholds that came in response to a Taleban attack on Karachi international airport.

A look at some of the major attacks in Pakistan in recent years:

2014:

• Nov. 2: Taleban suicide bomber kills 60 in attack on a paramilitary checkpoint close to the Wagah border crossing with India.
• June 9: Ten gunmen disguised as police guards attack a terminal at Pakistan’s busiest airport with machine guns and a rocket launcher, killing 13 people during a five-hour siege.
• 8 June: A suicide bomber in the country’s southwest killed at least 23 pilgrims returning from Iran.

2013:

• Sept. 22: A twin suicide bomb blast in a Peshawar church kills at least 85 people.
• Aug. 17: Heavily armed Taleban fighters blast their way into a Pakistani air force base, leaving two security officers and nine insurgents dead.
• June 22: 10 Foreign climbers killed by militants on Nanga Parbat, ninth highest mountain in world.
• March 3: Explosion in Karachi kills 45 people outside a mosque.
• Jan. 10: Bombing in Shiite area of southern city of Quetta kills 81 people, wounds 120.

2012:

• Nov. 22: A Taleban suicide bomber struck a Shiite Muslim procession in the city of Rawalpindi, near Pakistan’s capital, killing 23 people.
• Jan. 5: Taleban shoot and kill 15 Pakistani frontier police after holding them hostage for more than a year.

2011:

• Sept. 20: Militants kill at least 26 people on a bus near the southern city of Quetta.
• May 23: Pakistani commandos recapture a major naval base from Taleban attackers who struck to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden in a US raid. Militants destroyed two US-supplied surveillance aircraft and killed at least 10 personnel.
• May 13: A pair of Taleban suicide bombers attacks paramilitary police recruits in Shabqadar, killing 80, also in retaliation for bin Laden’s killing.

2010:

• Nov. 5: A suicide bomber strikes a mosque in Darra Adam Khel in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 67 during Friday prayers.
• Sept. 1: A triple Taleban suicide attack on a procession kills 65 in the southwestern city of Quetta.
• July 9: Two suicide bombers kills 102 people in the tribal region.
• July 2: Suicide bombers attack Pakistan’s most revered Sufi shrine in the eastern city of Lahore, killing 47 people.
• May 29: Two militant squads armed with hand grenades, suicide vests and assault rifles attack two mosques of the Ahmadi minority sect in Lahore, killing 97.
• March 13: Two suicide bombers targeting army vehicles in Lahore kill more than 55 people.
• Jan. 1: A suicide bomber drives a truckload of explosives into a volleyball field in Lakki Marwat district in the northwest, killing at least 97 people.

2009:

• Dec. 28: Bomb blast kills at least 44 at a procession in the southern city of Karachi.
• Dec. 7: Two bombs kill 48 at a market in the eastern city of Lahore, while a suicide bomber kills 10 people outside a Peshawar courthouse.
• Oct. 9: A suicide car bomber hits a busy market area in Peshawar, killing 53.
• May 27: A suicide car bomber targets police and intelligence offices in the eastern city of Lahore, killing about 30 people.
• March 27: A suicide bomber demolishes a packed mosque near the northwestern town of Jamrud, killing about 50.
• March 3: Gunmen attack the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, wounding several of the players and killing six policemen and a driver.

2008

• Sept. 20: A suicide bomber devastates the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad with a truck full of explosives, killing at least 54.
• Aug. 21: Suicide bombers blow themselves up at two gates of a weapons factory in the town of Wah, killing at least 67 people.

2007

• Dec. 27: Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and 20 other people are killed in a suicide bombing and shooting attack in Rawalpindi.
• Oct. 18: Suicide bombing aimed at Bhutto kills some 150 people in Karachi during celebrations welcoming her home from self-exile.
• July 3-11: An eight-day standoff between security forces and militants inside the compound of the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, kills 102 people.

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10 horrifying mass-scale attacks targeting students

Following are the 10 most horrifying attacks by terrorists and gunmen targeting students:

1. Beslan massacre (Sep 1, 2004): 386 killed, over 700 injured. Members of Chechen leader Shamil Basayev’s Riyadhin Al Salihin group took more than 1,200 school children and adults hostage Sep 1, 2004, at School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia. After a three-day standoff with Russian security forces, 386 people were killed, 186 of them children.

2. Bath School disaster (May 18, 1927): 45 killed, 58 injured. Former school board member Andrew Kehoe set off three bombs in Bath township in the US state of Michigan. Kehoe later killed himself and the superintendent by blowing up his own vehicle.

3. Virginia Tech massacre (April 16, 2007): 32 killed, 17 injured. The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting comprising two separate attacks about two hours apart, on the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, US. The perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people before committing suicide. It was the deadliest shooting massacre by a single gunman in US history.

4. Ma’alot massacre (May 15, 1974): 26 killed, 60 injured. On the 26^th anniversary of Israeli independence, members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine took a group of 100 high school students hostage while they were on a class trip to Ma’alot in Israel.

5. Erfurt massacre (April 26, 2002): 18 killed, seven injured. Robert Steinhauser, a 19-year-old expelled student of the Gutenburg Gymnasium School in the east German city of Erfurt, went on a shooting spree, killing 17, including a policeman, before killing himself.

6. Dunblane massacre (March 13, 1996): 17 killed. Thomas Hamilton, an unemployed former shopkeeper and Scout leader, walked into Dunblane Primary School near Stirling in Scotland, armed with two 9 mm pistols and two .357 Magnum revolvers. He killed 16 children and a teacher. This tragedy led to the banning of handguns in Britain.

7. University of Texas Clock Tower massacre (Aug 1, 1966): 17 killed, 31 injured. A day after killing his wife and mother, Charles Whitman, an engineering student and former US Marine, pointed a rifle from the observation deck of the University of Texas at Austin’s Tower and went on a 96-minute homicidal rampage before he was shot dead by police.

8. Columbine High School massacre (April 20, 1999): 15 killed, 24 injured. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, stormed Columbine High School at Littleton in the US state of Colorado, and murdered 12 other students aged 14 to 18 as well as a teacher. Both the perpetrators of the attack then committed suicide.

9. The Ecole Polytechnique massacre (December 6, 1989): 15 killed, 14 injured. Claiming that he was “fighting feminism”, 25-year-old Marc Lepine, 25, separated men and women in a classroom of the École Polytechnique at the University of Montreal, Canada, and shot all nine women present, killing six of them. He then moved through the corridors, cafeteria and another classroom, killing in all 14 women. He then took his own life.

10. Cologne school massacre (June 11, 1964): 11 killed, 22 injured. Armed with a flame thrower, a lance and a homebuilt mace, Walter Seifert, 42, who was dismissed from police service after being found to be infected with tubersulosis, entered the Katholische Volksschule (Catholic elementary school) in Cologne, Germany, and opened fire on girls playing in the courtyard. He then knocked in classroom windows with his mace and fired inside. Eight students and two teachers were killed. He then consumed a cyanide pill and died the next day in police custody.