Three explosions have been heard at a Pakistani school currently under attack by the Taliban.
Children as young as five are among at least 100 dead in the north western city of Peshawar.
Police were struggling to hold back distraught parents trying to break past a cordon and get to the school when three loud explosions went off, police officials said.
At least 84 children have been killed in the attack and many more are missing. The Taliban say they sent in six gunmen wearing suicide vests.
Taliban terrorists went to the high school in Peshawar earlier today where they launched the deadly attack slaughtering at least 95 people.
Local media is reporting that there are more than 100 dead.
He said: ‘We selected the army’s school for the attack because the government is targeting our families and females. We want them to feel our pain.’
The school is in Peshawar, a region of Pakistan which has suffered extreme violence in recent years.
Two militants have also been reportedly killed.
Pervez Khattak, the chief minister of the province where Peshawar is located, said 84 people have died but that could rise further in the unfolding drama.
He said fighting was still underway and that roughly the same number of students have been wounded. He said the 84 killed were all ‘children’ but hospital officials earlier said at least one of the fatalities was a teacher and a security official was also among the dead.
The school is located on the edge of a military cantonment in Peshawar but the bulk of the students are civilian.
Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khurasani claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to media, saying that six suicide bombers had carried out the attack in revenge for the killings of Taliban members at the hands of Pakistani authorities.
One of the wounded students, Abdullah Jamal, said he was with a group of 8th, 9th and 10th graders who were getting first-aid instruction with a team of Pakistani army medics when the attack began.
When the shooting started, Mr Jamal, who was shot in the leg, said nobody knew what was going on in the first few seconds.
‘Then I saw children falling down who were crying and screaming. I also fell down. I learned later that I have got a bullet,’ he said, speaking from his hospital bed.
‘All the children had bullet wounds. All the children were bleeding,’ he added.
Peshawar has been the target of frequent militant attacks in the past but has seen a relative lull recently.
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