School massacre 'Pakistan's 9/11': minister

December 19, 2014 23:19

A Taliban massacre at a school is "Pakistan's 9/11", the country's top foreign policy official said today, saying the assault that left 149 dead would change the country's approach to fighting terror.

The attack on an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar horrified the world and drew promises of swift retribution for the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which claimed it.

Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs and national security advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said the assault, the deadliest terror attack in Pakistan's history, was a "game changer".

"This has shaken the entire Pakistani society to the core, and in many ways it's a threshold in our strategy for countering terrorism," he told AFP in an interview.

"Just like 9/11 changed the US and the world forever, this 16/12 is kind of our mini 9/11."

Pakistan has long been accused of playing a double game with militants groups, supporting those it thinks it can use for its own strategic ends, particularly in Afghanistan and disputed Kashmir.

But Aziz said that way of thinking was at an end after Tuesday, when heavily-armed fighters went from room to room at the school, gunning down children.

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