PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban gunmen stormed an elite army high school Tuesday in a killing spree that claimed at least 141 lives — nearly all students — and brought defiant calls from Pakistan’s leaders to strike back harder against militants.
After a nearly nine-hour battle in northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, police officials said all seven militants had been killed.
Maj. Gen. Asim Bajwa, an army spokesman, then gave the latest death toll: 132 students and nine teachers or staff members. The attackers, Bajwa said, sought “to inflict maximum harm” and took no hostages.
Hundreds were wounded, some seriously. It was possible the death figures could rise amid the carnage that brought global condemnation.
“A house of learning turned into a house of unspeakable horror,” said Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement from London.
Pakistani army convoys drove from the scene even as families wept on the streets or carried hastily made plywood coffins to a hospital filled with the dead, many still wearing their green school blazers and sweaters.
The massacre struck at the heart of Pakistan’s military, one of the nation’s most highly respected institutions, which is seen as the guardian of stability in a turbulent region and an important bridge between Pakistan and Western allies such as the United States.
The school, while open to the public, has deep connections to the military. It is funded by Pakistan’s army, and many students are children of military personnel based in Peshawar.
Since Pakistan’s army launched a major operation against Islamist militants in the country’s restive tribal areas in June, attacks have decreased but the Pakistani Taliban had been warning for months that it would retaliate.
The decision to target students brought a wave of anger and disgust from across the world — similar in ways to the outrage after a Taliban gunman shot Pakistan student activist Malala Yousafzai in 2012.
“I am heartbroken,” the 17-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate said in a statement just hours after the attack. “But we will never be defeated.”
In a statement, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility, saying it was to avenge the military operation in North Waziristan. Six militants, including three suicide bombers, carried out the assault, the Taliban said.
“My son was in uniform in the morning. He is in a casket now,” wailed one parent, Tahir Ali, as he collected the body of his 14-year-old son, Abdullah, according to The Associated Press. “My son was my dream. My dream has been killed.”
Pervaiz Khattak, chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, said the Taliban attackers started “indiscriminate firing” after entering the school through a back door.
Muhammad Harris, a 16-year-old student, said he was in a room with 30 students and four teachers when they heard a commotion in the hallway.
“Our female teacher went outside when we heard the firing and was shot dead,” Harris said. “One attacker was crying, ‘Help me I am injured.’ But he was not and was trying to trap us and shoot us.”
At Lady Reading hospital, 16-year-old Shahrukh Khan said he hid behind a desk as four gunmen entered the auditorium. He watched the gunmen calmly shoot anyone they could find. Then, from behind the desk, he saw two black boots approaching him, he told Agence France-Presse.
Bullets then tore into both his legs below his knee.
“I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me,” he said. “I felt as though it was death that was approaching me.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who rushed to Peshawar, denounced the school assault as a “cowardly act” and vowed to maintain the military operations against militants “until the menace of terrorism is eliminated from Pakistani soil.”
“The fight will continue. No one should have any doubt about it,” Sharif said. “We will take account of each and every drop of our children’s blood.”
President Barack Obama promised to stand by Pakistan — a key ally in the region — after an attack he described as “horrific.”
“By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity,” his statement said.
Even Taliban militants in neighboring Afghanistan decried the killing spree as “un-Islamic.”
Hanan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistan military analyst, said the attack was an “unprecedented” in a country that experienced thousands of terrorists attacks in the past decade.
Deadliest school attacks
September 2004: More than 330 people were killed — nearly half of them children — after Islamist rebels seized control of a school in Beslan in North Ossetia in Russia’s North Caucasus region.
October 2007: About 150 people were killed in Karachi, Pakistan, after suicide bombers targeted celebrations welcoming back former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto after years in self-exile.
