Gunfire heard at Pakistan university

Pakistani police say gunmen have stormed a university in the country’s northwest and have wounded at least five people in the attack.

As police and soldiers rushed to the scene, the attackers traded gunfire with the troops, and several explosions were heard.

A breakaway faction of the Taliban took responsibility for the university attack, although a spokesman for the larger Taliban organization, led by Mullah Fazlullah, denied having anything to do with it and called it “un-Islamic”.

The Bacha Khan University teaches over 3,000 students and hosted an additional 600 visitors on Wednesday for a poetry recital, the vice chancellor said.

Expressing similar sentiments, Defence Expert PK Sehgal said the Taliban which is taking revenge on the Pakistan Army is making desperate attempts to overthrow the government in Islamabad.

The attack comes slightly a year after the horrific one on the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014 where armed militants killed over 140 people including over 130 students.

The attack spurred widespread outrage across Pakistan, with a candlelight vigil for the victims held in the southwestern city of Quetta and dozens of people protesting in the port mega-city of Karachi.

Geology student Zahoor Ahmed said he had tried to leave his hostel after hearing shots fired.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 (APP): The United States will stand side-by-side with Pakistan in its fight against terrorism, the US State Department said on Wednesday after a terrorist attack on a university in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It was one of the group’s boldest strikes “in a long insurgency” against Pakistani officials that singled out educational institutions.

Bajwa said “major breakthroughs” had been made in identifying the terrorists who attacked the university.

Pakistan, which has suffered from years of jihadist militant violence, has killed and arrested hundreds of suspected militants under a major crackdown launched afterwards.

The university had been packed with teacher and students with a poetry festival underway at the time of the deadly attack. He said it was in revenge for the scores of militants the Pakistani security forces have killed in recent months.

In a statement, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif assured Pakistanis he is committed to the battle against terrorism.

On resumption of proceedings, the defence minister said so far 20 deaths had been reported while four terrorists were also killed during the operation.