Taliban kill 20 in attack at northwest Pakistani university

Umar Mansoor is claimed by TTP to be the controller of 2014 Peshawar school attack.

The Associated Press reported Pakistan police as saying that the gunmen killed a professor and a student in the attack. He said he locked himself inside a second-floor bathroom and then jumped out the window when he saw one of the attackers approaching.

The four suspected attackers capitalized on a thick, morning fog – the reduced visibility initially worked to their advantage, but armed and trained campus security guards, who knew the grounds more intimately, were able to gain control of the situation, ending the attack after about three hours, the BBC reports. Mansoor, who was the mastermind behind the Peshawar school attack, said a four-man Taliban team carried out the assault.

However, a spokesman for the main Taliban faction in Pakistan later disowned the group behind Wednesday’s attack, describing the assault as “un-Islamic”.

A chemistry teacher who tried to protect his students by opening fire on Taliban militants during a deadly attack at a Pakistani university has been hailed as a “martyr” and a “gentleman”.

But another spokesman, Mohammad Khurrassani, from the Pakistan Taliban’s central organization, disavowed any role.

“I have no idea about what’s going on but I heard one security official talking on the phone to someone and [he] said many people had been killed and injured”, lecturer Shabir Khan told the news agency.

“Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is deeply grieved over the sad incident of terrorists’ attack on Bacha Khan University, Charsada, which has reportedly resulted into the loss of precious human lives and injured many others”, a statement from the Prime Minister’s office read.

Khurasani also said the Taliban “consider the students in non-military institutions the future of our jihad movement” and would not kill potential future followers.

He also says Mullah Fazlullah, the head of the Pakistani Taliban had nothing to do with the attack.

Bacha Khan University is named after the founder of a liberal, anti-Taliban party.

Pakistan’s northwest region is highly volatile. In reaction, Pakistani militants with ties to the Afghan Taliban galvanized into a Taliban of their own.

The four attackers died in the gun battle that followed the attack, according to local reports.

The Peshawar school attack horrified the country and led the government to lift a 2008 moratorium on the death penalty.

Militant attacks have declined in Pakistan since the start of the North Waziristan operation.