A woman with a headband on her forehead attends a candle light vigil in Kathmandu
A woman with a headband on her forehead attends a candle light vigil in Kathmandu December 17, 2014, for the students killed at the military-run Army Public School in Peshawar. Pakistan woke up to a day of mourning on Wednesday after Taliban militants killed 132 students in a grisly attack which shocked the nation and put pressure on the government to do more to tackle the insurgency. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

The Pakistani Taliban management released images of the Peshawar gunmen who killed 148 people in the Army School on Tuesday. The extremist group warned, after the killings which included 132 children, that more attacks were on the way.

The Pakistani Taliban justified the suicide attack on children by claiming that the national army had killed its children and families as well. Pakistani Taliban spokesman Mohammad Khurasani said that there would be further attacks, while he asked civilians to stay away from all kinds of military organisations. One of the released images shows around seven men holding guns in front of a white banner. The official statement said that the photo had been taken in one of the tribal regions in Pakistan.

In the meantime, mass funerals for the 148 people who had been killed in the suicide attack were underway. The dead body of Tahira Qazi, the principal of the Peshawar school, was also found among the debris. According to military spokesman Major General Asim Bajwa, the head of the Army School was in her office when the gunmen entered the administration building. Bajwa said that Qazi had locked herself inside the bathroom but could not save herself as the gunmen threw a grenade in the room through a vent. The Independent mentioned Bajwa as saying that the gunmen opened random fire at the students who had gathered in the main auditorium for an event. Pakistan is going to observe a three-day mourning period for the massacre. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, meanwhile, lifted a moratorium on the death penalty.

Daily Mail reported that the gunmen posed proudly in front of a banner saying, "There is no God but Allah." The photos were apparently taken only hours before the Tuesday attack. The Taliban also released an email with the photographs that accused the Pakistani army of killing innocent people from Taliban families. The email warns that the Peshawar attack was just a glimpse of what the Taliban is capable of. "We are still able to carry out major attacks. This was just the trailer," the email says.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au

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