2014 Peshawar school massacre

2014 Peshawar School Attack پشاور اسکول قتل عام
Army Public School Auditorium, Peshawar
Location of the attack: Army Public School is located in the centre
Location	The Army Public School, Warsak Road, Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Coordinates	34°00′49″N 71°32′10″E / 34.01361°N 71.53611°E / 34.01361; 71.53611Coordinates: 34°00′49″N 71°32′10″E / 34.01361°N 71.53611°E / 34.01361; 71.53611
Date	16 December 2014 (2014-12-16) 10:30 PST – 19:56 PST (UTC+05:00)
Target	Students and school staff
Attack type	Suicide bombing,spree killing, hostage-taking,school shooting
Deaths	148 (including 7 attackers)
Non-fatal injuries	114
Perpetrators	Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan
Defenders	Special Services Group
Motive	retaliation against Operation Zarb-e-Azb

On 16 December 2014, seven gunmen affiliated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) conducted a terrorist attack on the Army Public School in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar. The militants, all of whom were foreign nationals, included one Chechen, three Arabs and two Afghans. They entered the school and opened fire on school staff and children, killing 141 people, including 132 schoolchildren, ranging between eight and eighteen years of age. A rescue operation was launched by the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group (SSG) special forces, who killed all seven terrorists and rescued 960 people.

This was the deadliest terrorist attack ever to occur in Pakistan, surpassing the 2007 Karsaz attack. According to various news agencies and commentators, the nature and preparation of the attack was very similar to that of the Beslan school hostage crisis that occurred in the North Ossetia–Alania region of the Russian Federation in 2004.

Pakistan responded to the attacks by lifting its moratorium on the death penalty, intensifying the War in North-West Pakistan and authorizing military courts to try civilians through a constitutional amendment. On 2 December 2015, Pakistan hanged four militants involved in the Peshawar massacre, whereas the mastermind of the attack, Omar Khorasani, was killed in a drone strike in eastern Afghanistan on 9 July 2016. The Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld the death sentences of two more convicts involved in the attack in the Said Zaman Khan v. Federation of Pakistan case on 29 August 2016.