At least 13 people have been killed at a university in Peshawar, a northern city in Pakistan, in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
Fifteen others were also wounded after gunmen wearing face veils stormed the Agricultural Training Institute on Friday, Salahuddin Mehsud, inspector general of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police, told Al Jazeera.
Six students were among the dead, plus three other people and the four attackers, who had arrived on the premises on auto-rickshaws.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the Pakistani Taliban, claimed that it was not targeting the school, but a safe house belonging to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the same area.
The army’s operation to regain control of the university took two hours.
Several people reportedly jumped from buildings to save their lives, sustaining fractures.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said Friday marks Eid Milad un-Nabi, a public holiday in Pakistan celebrating the birth of Prophet Muhammad, meaning the university would have been less busy than on a regular working day.
There are usually 400 students on campus. On Friday, there were just 150 at the university.
All of the roads to the university were blocked as the operation to clear the fighters took place, and emergency services were on the scene.
[Source: Al Jazeera]