Pakistan busts terrorists' gang involved in army school attack

Pakistan's army said on Thursday that the group of terrorists involved in the brutal Taliban attack on a military school in December has been busted and most of them were either killed or arrested.

The attack had killed 140 children and 10 staff members of the Army Public School in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility for the savage attack.

The military spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa told a news conference that a total of 27 terrorists had been involved in the attack and its plan.

He said nine out of the 27 have been killed in operations. He said six terrorists involved in the attack were apprehended from Pakistan and six from Afghanistan, while others are still at large. He said the arrested men have also confessed involvement in some other terrorist attacks.

He requested the Afghan authorities to hand over the accused to Pakistan in view of the growing security cooperation between the two countries.

"We are thankful to the Afghan government for the arrests on our intelligence. I am hopeful that the Afghan government will extradite them," General Bajwa said.

"The school attack was planning on the Pak-Afghan border area," he said.

General Asim Bajwa said that chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan Mulla Fazalullah and another mastermind Umar Ameer are still in Afghanistan.

"Both Pakistan and Afghanistan are constantly sharing intelligence and they will be arrested or eliminated soon," he said.

He said that the attack was carried out on the directions of Mulla Fazlullah, who chose Umar Ameer to supervise the attack. They had selected six suicide bombers for this purpose.

"The terrorists first got all information about the school and roads leading to its building," the army spokesman said.

General Bajwa said that one of the facilitators also included a prayer leader in Peshawar who hosted three attackers for a night near the school. The prayer leader was a government employee as he was performing duty at a mosque at the Irrigation Department.

The other group had rented a house at Tehkal area, just a few kilometers away from the school. Both groups later gathered at the house of the prayer leader to launch the attack.

The military spokesman also played video interviews of some of the arrested Taliban militants and a phone recording between two Taliban leaders after the attack.

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