Have the Pakistani Taliban targeted a school before? They have struck at more than 1,000 schools in Pakistan since 2009. Most were bombed, burnt down or simply shut through intimidation. They have also targeted students: Malala Yousafzai is a case in point, The United Nations reported 152 incidents of partial or complete destruction of school facilities in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2011 alone. According to The New York Times, militants have usually opted to attack schools “in the dead of night, planting explosives that topple buildings and shred desks and blackboards”. What do they have against schools? One explanation given by experts is that education undermines extremism, thus making it an effective weapon to fight extremists. There are at least seven million boys and girls out of school in Pakistan, according to BBC, and they are vulnerable to extremist propaganda because of denied opportunities. Targeting a school also creates panic, at times turning victims towards extremism. How do they justify their opposition to education? The Pakistani Taliban describe schools as symbols of both “western decadence” and government authority. They call the education of girls “un-Islamic” and ban girls attending school under a 2011 edict. Are Taliban unanimous in this? Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued in 2013 a rare statement urging the youth to “arm themselves with religious and modern education because modern education is a fundamental need of every society”. He did not specify if “modern education” meant girls going to school. After the Taliban admitted in 2013 that the attempt to kill Malala had been “counterproductive”, Taliban commander Adnan Rasheed said “all that the Taliban oppose is western education”, implying the only education they favour is indoctrination. Did the anti-education stance drive the attack on the Peshawar school? It was a revenge attack against the government for its crackdown on militants. As reported earlier, the Pakistani Taliban’s Muhammad Khorasani has said, “We selected the army school because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel the pain.”
