They believed that in murdering these children, they were pleasing their bloodthirsty god who commands them to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60) and to kill apostates, heretics, those who sow corruption, and so many other groups of human beings.
“‘I saw death so close,'” AFP, December 16, 2014:
PESHAWAR: A teenage survivor of Tuesday’s Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar school described how he played dead after being shot in both legs by insurgents hunting down students to kill.
Militants rampaged through the army-run school in Peshawar and killed at least 130 people, most of them children, in one of the bloodiest ever attacks in Pakistan.
Speaking from his bed in the trauma ward of the city’s Lady Reading Hospital, Shahrukh Khan, 16, said he and his classmates were in a careers guidance session in the school auditorium when four gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms burst in.
“Someone screamed at us to get down and hide below the desks,” he said, adding that the gunmen shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) before opening fire.
“Then one of them shouted: ‘There are so many children beneath the benches, go and get them’,” Khan told AFP.
“I saw a pair of big black boots coming towards me, this guy was probably hunting for students hiding beneath the benches.”
He decided to play dead, adding: “I folded my tie and pushed it into my mouth so that I wouldn’t scream.
“The man with big boots kept on looking for students and pumping bullets into their bodies. I lay as still as I could and closed my eyes, waiting to get shot again.
“My body was shivering. I saw death so close and I will never forget the black boots approaching me — I felt as though it was death that was approaching me.”…