Horrific terror attacks

For two successive days the world watched in horror as terror attacks occurred in quick succession in two different parts of the world. Both incidents were reminiscent of the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai six years ago. The most horrific is yesterday’s terror attack at a Pakistan Army-run school in Peshawar located in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province which resulted in 140 dead, most of them young students barely in their teens, with over 200 wounded. A group of heavily armed terrorists apparently belonging to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and wearing paramilitary Frontier Corps uniform stormed into Army Public School around 10.30 am and went from classroom to classroom indiscriminately spraying bullets wantonly killing innocent young children.
Indeed, it was brutality at its worst and a shame on humanity as screaming children fell to the bullets of merciless terrorists. A shocked world closed ranks to condemn this most inhuman act by terrorists on a fanatical suicide mission. A heartless TTP went on to claim responsibility even as their killers were butchering innocent children saying it was revenge for the Pakistani Army’s operation against militants in the North Waziristan tribal area close to Peshawar. As anti-terror operations were underway, the Pakistani Army responded with air strikes in the Khyber Agency against the TTP. Only a day earlier, on Monday, a lone Iranian cleric with a criminal record who had been given refuge in Australia took hostage several customers in a Sydney café along with its staff members. Thereafter what followed was over 16 hours of terror that culminated in a fire fight in the wee hours of Tuesday morning that resulted in the death of two hostages and the gunman with at least four others wounded.
The incidents serve as a chilling reminder about the scourge of terrorism that has gripped our society and the world. Countries around the world need to shed their differences and unite to fight and eliminate both terrorists and terrorism. In particular there is need for Pakistan to introspect on its policy of nurturing terrorism as an instrument of foreign policy. We need not say more. It is a day to mourn not just for Pakistan and Australia but the entire world with innocent people being inhumanly targeted by terrorist bullets.