Pakistan: Attack on girls' school in Waziristan kills one

BALOCHISTAN: One person was killed and a security personnel injured in an attack when unknown militants opened fire on a girls' school in Pakistan's South Waziristan on Thursday, according to Dawn.

The attack took place in a school in the Azam Warsak area of the South Waziristan district.

The Army Public School for Girls was celebrating Parents' Day when the militants started shooting from a nearby mountain. According to Dawn, which cited police authorities, all of the people inside the school at the time of the attack--students, parents, staff, and security personnel--were unharmed.

Masti Khan, the deceased, was struck by a bullet while he was walking by the school, according to a police official. The injured security guard was taken to a hospital. The terrorists escaped to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region when security forces retaliated, an official added.

Over the course of the last 40 days, militants have attacked six times the Azam Warsak Police Station, resulting in the deaths of seven police officers. Following an uptick in militant attacks, the police are said to have left the bordering police stations of Raghzai and Khankot, Dawn reported.

Since the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan broke the ceasefire with the government on November 28 and vowed to carry out attacks throughout the nation, this was the first attack in the area to target a girls' school.

According to Dawn, the Quetta attack signals the new beginning of a violent post-ceasefire campaign by the TTP, unless the security establishment and political leadership start to nip this evil in the bud.

The TTP, a Pakistani offshoot and close ally of the Afghan Taliban, is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. According to UN estimates, it has between 4,000 to 6,500 fighters in Afghanistan. Its spread is beyond the tribal belt, to Pakistani cities.