100 children cowered in the hall, killers singled them out one by one

“We have killed all of the children in the auditorium,” the militant, later identified as Abuzer, told his handler. “What do we do now?”

“Wait for the army to arrive,” came the reply. “Kill them, then blow yourself up.”

That conversation, recounted by a senior security official who said it had been intercepted by Pakistani intelligence, offered sobering proof of the methodical approach and cold resolve of the Taliban militants who, over the course of an eight-hour rampage, killed 148 people in the Peshawar school, 132 of whom were children.

The greatest carnage occurred inside the auditorium, where soldiers said they had recovered over 100 bodies, many piled on one another. Shoes, copybooks and spectacles were scattered amid empty rows of seats where, according to witness accounts, students had cowered in a vain attempt to evade the killers. They were singled out, one by one, and shot in the head.

Some teachers tried to intervene. An army officer was giving first-aid lessons on the main stage of the auditorium when the gunmen burst in. A female teacher, officers said, had begged the gunmen to let the children go. She was also executed.

The militant rampage was cut short, officials said, when commandos with the army’s elite Special Service Group entered the school. The retreating gunmen holed up in the central administration block, using it for cover as they opened fire on the advancing soldiers.

The administration block was where the siege ended. Five of the militants exploded their suicide vests in the lobby; the remaining two charged at commandos who had taken position outside the building. They also exploded their vests, sending a spray of shrapnel into trees and walls and wounding seven commandos, one of whom received serious injuries to the face.

Those who arrived on the scene afterward said they were traumatised by what they found. “Piles of bodies, most dead, some alive,” said one officer, struggling to hold back tears. “Blood everywhere. I wish I had not seen this.”

The blood was everywhere on the school complex: smeared on the walls, pooled in the corridors and soaked in abandoned clothes. The principal’s office was streaked with blast marks and blood, torn by a suicide bomber’s blast. Military officials believe the principal, Tahira Qazi, died trying to save her students — the bodies of two boys were also found in the office.

On Wednesday, mourners gathered in Landi Arbab village on the southwestern edge of the city. Men wrapped in wool shawls wept as Tahira Qazi was lowered into a grave.

(Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud contributed reporting from Peshawar, and Declan Walsh from London)