This post will be updated.
Militants attacked a university in Pakistan today (Jan. 20). Starting at around 9am local time, they opened fire on the school, killing security guards, students, and teachers. At least 40 people have been killed according to official estimates, Reuters reported, and dozens are injured. Many more are feared dead based on local news reports.
The attacks took place at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda, about 100km northwest of the nation’s capital of Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack, reported the Associated Press.
The school is located in the nation’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, part of which borders Afghanistan. The province includes Peshawar, where militants from the Pakistani Taliban attacked a school in late 2014, killing 141 people, 132 of them children.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif has meanwhile promised to fight the “menace of terrorism.”
“We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,” Sharif was quoted as saying by the Daily Pakistan.
Several students and security guards had been killed, Pakistan’s newspaper Dawn reported, as well as Dr Syed Hamid Hussain, a chemistry professor.