School children massacre —– From Beslan School Russia to Army Public School Peshawar
Islamabad: Killing over 125 school children mostly sons and daughters of officials of Pakistan Army from Peshawar cantonment area showed again how dangerous radicalism and purist Islamic thoughts are. There are over 500 Army Public Schools spread all over in Pakistan and nobody knows what would be the next target of Islamist in quest of taking revenge from Pakistani nation.
During killing innocent children mostly under the age of 16, spokesman of Taliban Umar (Omar) Khorasani was in contact with international news agency Reuters and said to reporter that their (Taliban) action was in retaliation for the ongoing operations in the North Waziristan tribal area. He said Taliban had targeted the school because “Army is targeting our families and females” in the military operations. This is same justification that is being given by Islamist militants while killing school and college children in Kenya, Nigeria and other places in Africa. This is the same narrative that came out from Islamists extremists after the biggest massacre of school children in Beslan– a small town in Russia’s North Ossetia on September 1, 2004. 186 school children were killed while total number of killed people was 300.
There are many links between Beslan school tragedy and Army School Peshawar massacre. It is believe by international intelligence networking that Chechen Islamist leaders were roaming about and living in Peshawar and adjoining areas when Chechen Islamist group planned and executed massacre of Beslan school 10 years ago. Celebrating the first day of the school year turned into a nightmare for 1,128 Beslan children, teachers and parents, who were taken hostage by terrorists. For three days, hostages were held at gunpoint and denied water, food or medical help, until the captors detonated explosives inside the school. After that security forces intervened to free the hostages. Islamist militants of Chechnya also planted IEDs on pavements, around walls and in main ground as did by Taliban today in Peshawar. Global brand of Islamist militancy and terrorism have similar threads, techniques, justifications to kill innocent people and same goal to achieve— an Islamic state on the patrons of Saudi Arabia.
Nurpashi Kulaev, the only surviving terrorist from the group that attacked school in Beslan 10 years ago, leading to the deaths of 186 children has no regrets and said in a recently broadcasted documentary that:
“I don’t feel guilty that women and children died. But I can say neither I nor anyone else could have saved them because the decisions were made by other people.”
In Islamist terrorism, executers (militants who are foot soldiers and do actions and kill people) are not decision makers because decisions are made by some “unknown Islamist leaders” and then these decisions are transferred to executers through another channel therefore mostly executers do not know who made decisions. Same design is being followed by Taliban in Pakistan. Taliban leadership is sitting in Kunar valley of Afghanistan from where decisions are being taken but nobody knows these decisions are made by whom? There are reports that Mullah Fazlullah is just a symbolic personality while decisions are made by his Afghan handlers having direct links to Indian intelligence networking. However India always denies this while Afghanistan government that is backed by ISAF forces has failed to take action against Mullah Fazlullah and his handlers.
Interestingly, Nurpashi Kulaev (the only surviving terrorist from the group that attacked school in Beslan 10 years ago) also said in his latest interview that terrorists did not want to kill small children but children above the age of 16 and if small children were dead that was just because of collateral damage factor. The same justification came from Taliban today as Muhammad Umar Khorasani said:
Our suicide bombers have entered the school; they have instructions not to harm the children, but to target army personnel. The militants, however, see older students (above 16 year of age that is puberty age according to Islam) as legitimate targets for their attack.
Nurpashi Kulaev remembered that they were in contact with international media during their action as Taliban were in contact with international media.
Russians as a nation have not forgotten this horrific incident and there is annual mourning in this area and a monument was constructed and the building of school is preserved (not changed and still shown horrific attack impressions) but I believe that in Pakistan nation will forget this incident and school building will be renovated leaving no sigh of this horrific attack because “Pakistan is a Different nation”.
