School boy tells of terrifying moment his crying classmates were shot dead in the Pakistan school attack

Pakistan: A traumatised schoolboy has told how his crying classmates were shot dead in front of him in a horrifying Taliban school massacre that killed 132 children.

Teachers and security guards were also slaughtered in the Pakistan terror attack, taking the death toll to 141, with more than a hundred others injured.

A gang of nine gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed the military school – for pupils aged five to 16 – and started firing at the youngsters as they cowered in the corners of classrooms.

Some of the men blew themselves up – including one who killed 60 children in one room when the blast went off.

And a teacher was burned alive after petrol was poured over her as her terrified pupils were forced to watch.

Army commandos arrived and launched a ferocious nine-hour gun battle with the murderers. All nine gunmen ended up dead.

The atrocity on innocent children is a new low for the terrorists and could be what finally makes Pakistan’s rulers finally clamp down on the Taliban.

Schoolboy Irfan Shah, 10, said: “Our teacher first told us a drill was going on and we need not worry.

“It was very intense firing. Then the sound came closer. Then we heard cries.

"One of our friends opened the class window. He started weeping as there were several school fellows lying on the ground outside the class.

“Everybody was in panic. Two of our class fellows ran outside class in panic. They were shot in front of us.”

The teacher ordered the class of 33 to flee towards the school’s back gate.

Irfan said: “I tightly held the hand of my friend Daniyal and we ran. We were weeping. I felt bullets pass by my head twice. It was so terrible.

“We reached the back gate. As we stepped outside, we started weeping again very loudly.”

The youngster and his friend took refuge at an aunt’s house before fleeing in a school van.

The attackers, from the Pakistani Taliban – or Tehreek-e-Taliban – struck just after 11am at the school for the children of army personnel in Peshawar.

Dressed in army uniform, the killers managed to get inside from the roof of a van parked next to a wall, local police said.

As security guards approached, one terrorist blew himself up, before the commandos arrived to take the killers down.

One of the school’s older students Abdullah Jamal was shot in the leg in the massacre.

Speaking from his hospital bed yesterday he said he was being taught first-aid with a team of Pakistani army medics when the attack began.

He said: “I saw children falling down who were crying and screaming. I fell down. I learned later I have got a bullet. All the children had bullet wounds. All the children were bleeding.”

A source also told US TV station NBC: “They burnt a teacher in front of the students. They set the teacher on fire with gasoline and made the kids watch.”

The Pakistani Taliban are trying to overthrow the government and the attack was thought to have been in revenge for a massive military strike against the group, currently being launched in North Waziristan.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif insisted: “The government will continue until the terrorism is rooted out.”

The Afghanistan Taliban condemned the attack.

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “The intentional killing of innocent people, children and women are against the basics of Islam and this criteria has to be considered by every Islamic party and government.”

The Pakistani Taliban are separate from but allied to the Afghan Taliban across the border. Both aim to overthrow their own governments and establish an Islamic state.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the slaughter was “deeply shocking”. He added: “It’s horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school.”

Commons leader and ex-foreign secretary William Hague said: “It’s a heart-rending set of events. This slaughter of children is an atrocity I find particularly revolting.

And US President Barack Obama called for “peace and stability”.

He said: “By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity.”

The school is on the edge of a military quarters in Peshawar, northern Pakistan, but most students are civilians.

It is the worst attack in the country since the 2008 Karachi suicide bombing, which killed 150.

 The latest massacre highlights the vulnerability of Pakistani schools, which was exposed two years ago when Malala Yousafzai was shot by a Taliban gunman outside her school in Swat Valley for daring to speak up about girls’ rights.

She survived and became a Nobel Prize laureate and global advocate for girls’ education, but has never returned to Pakistan.

Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khurasani claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to media, saying horror to avenge the killings of Taliban members by the Pakistani authorities.