Pakistan Taliban commander vows more school attacks

video footage of four fighters he said carried out Wednesday’s deadly assault on a university in Pakistan

 

A senior Pakistani Taliban commander released video footage of four fighters he said carried out Wednesday’s deadly assault on a university in Pakistan’s northwest that killed 20 people and vowed more attacks on schools in future.

The footage raised fresh questions of a possible split in the fractured Taliban leadership, whose official spokesman has denied the group was behind the assault.

Militants scaled the walls of Bacha Khan University in Charsadda on Wednesday morning and killed 20 people before being gunned down by army commandos and police.

Taliban spokesman Mohammad Khorasani issued a written statement that evening disassociating the group from the attack and calling it un-Islamic. But the same day, a Taliban faction commander Umar Mansoor told Reuters his fighters had targeted the campus because it prepared students to join the government and army.