Militants' long and bloody war on education

A look at all major terror attacks targeting educational institutes since 2011.
Published December 1, 2017

As the shock of the brazen attack on Peshawar's Agricultural Training Institute subsides, parents across the country face the struggle of coming to terms with yet another terrorist attack targeting students.

With the wounds of the 2014 Army Public School tragedy still fresh, and later attacks on the Bacha Khan University and Quetta's Police Academy branded painfully on our collective memory, they have suffered tragic reminders time and again that their children's future in a Pakistan free of extremist and radical ideologies is far from secure.

Both civilian and military authority's continue to insist, quite depressingly, that such attacks are actually a sign that violent extremism is on the retreat in the country. In this worldview, educational institutions are described as 'soft targets'; hence, an attack on them is somehow not an alarming security failure, but evidence that the enemy cannot touch 'real', 'hard' targets.

With no visible signs that this deeply problematic approach to the security of Pakistan's most vulnerable citizens has changed or will change, here's a look back at all the attacks targeting students and educational institutions that have continued unabated since 2011: