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that was attacked by members of the Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday, December 16. CNN's Nic Robertson took these photos in the aftermath of the attack, which killed more than 140 people." border="0" height="360" id="articleGalleryPhoto001" width="640"/>A soldier walks outside the Pakistani school that was attacked by members of the Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday, December 16. CNN's Nic Robertson took these photos in the aftermath of the attack, which killed more than 140 people.
Bullet holes litter the walls of the school.
Most of those killed in the attack were children.
The attack drew sharp condemnation from top Pakistani officials, who vowed that the country wouldn't stop its war against the Taliban.
"Even the children are dying on the frontline in the war against terror," Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif told CNN. "The smaller the coffin, the heavier it is to carry. ... It's a very, very tragic day."
On a typical day, the school is home to about 1,100 students and staff, most of them sons and daughters of army personnel from around Peshawar.
More than 100 people were injured, many with gunshot wounds, according to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province Information Minister Mushtaq Ghani.
- CNN's Nic Robertson visits the Pakistan school where 132 children were killed
- Blood covers floors, walls
- Not far away parents are grieving while he tries to understand the horror
- There is no getting away from the pain of the wasted young lives
Peshawar, Pakistan (CNN) -- It was the computer classroom where I cracked. I'd managed to remain detached until then. I wanted to tell the story. Look, but don't internalize, was the mantra I was repeating inside my head.
Tell the facts, explain what you are seeing and what happened. I focused. I don't think I've been somewhere with so much blood on the floor.
Over the years, covering wars, I've seen more than my share. Sarajevo, the war in Bosnia as Yugoslavia tore itself apart, was an inoculation against my visceral fear of the red stuff.
In that conflict, mortars ripped through crowds of civilians. I soon learned what how head wounds bleed. It's different. You don't forget.
Here it was again in the auditorium. Dark and heavy. Don't think, focus and do your job, I was reminding myself.
Gruesome look inside attacked school
Soldiers patrol the streets in Peshawar, Pakistan, near a school that was attacked by the Pakistani Taliban on Tuesday, December 16. Militants stormed the military-run school in northwest Pakistan, killing more than 140 people, most of them children. More than 100 people were injured.
Relatives carry the body of a victim during his funeral procession.
A victim's coffin is carried from an ambulance.
The uncle and cousin of injured student Mohammad Baqair comfort him as he mourns the death of his mother, a teacher who was killed in the attack.
A man comforts a student who survived the attack.
Parents escort their children away from the school.
A wounded student receives treatment at a Peshawar hospital.
Pakistani soldiers hold positions close to the school. All the militants in the attack were eventually killed, a police official said.
Pakistani soldiers take position near the site of the attack.
A student is wheeled into a hospital in Peshawar.
A man and woman rush to a Peshawar hospital treating victims of the attack.
Family members wait outside the school.
People gather at a hospital where victims were being treated.
Pakistani soldiers position themselves at a fence near the besieged school.
A Pakistani soldier clears the area outside the school.
An injured student lies in bed at a Peshawar hospital after the attack.
A hospital security guard helps an injured student at the school.
Parents leave with their children near the site of the attack.
A plainclothes officer escorts rescued students away from the school.
Pakistani troops reach the site of the attack.
Volunteers carry a student at a hospital in Peshawar.
An injured girl gets rushed to a hospital in Peshawar.
A man comforts a student standing at the bedside of an injured boy.
A Pakistani soldier takes position on a bunker close to the besieged school.
Relatives of a student killed in the attack mourn over the student's body.
Hospital staff transport an injured student in Peshawar.
The body of a victim lies at a hospital in Peshawar.
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
Taliban attack Pakistani school
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Photos: Taliban attack Pakistani school
Pakistan grieves after school attack
Details from Taliban school attack emerge
But after a while I couldn't. These were children, innocents. Parents not far from here are suffering a harrowing pain none of us can imagine. Parents, whose jobs in the army is to protect their country, not able to save their own children.
The army officer showed us the doors where the children had tried to break out of the auditorium to run away from the Taliban gunmen.
The carpet is sticky and red. The floor tiles a mess of the worst of Sarajevo. The Taliban could not have been more callous and calculating. Where the children were most concentrated they turned their automatic weapons on them at point-blank range.
Cold-blooded murder. The officer tells me close to 100 children were gunned down right here.
Again, I'm telling myself to focus. Explain this brutal cowardly act.
Leaving the dark, sad auditorium for the light of day I feel I can breathe better. I look up at the sky. It's the color of hope -- clear blue and not a cloud to be seen.
I shouldn't have looked down again. I'm walking over to the classrooms at Army Public School and Degree College. Drops, smudges, pools of blood are everywhere. I'm becoming conscious that I'm trying not to step on them.
It seems disrespectful somehow.
How, I am thinking, could the Taliban be looking for even more bloodletting when they have already killed so many? But they are.
That's when I get to the computer classroom, maybe 30 feet long by 15 feet across. Computers on rough benches down each side of the room. Space for may be a dozen or so children to hone their computer skills.
You didn't have to be rich to send your child to this school and in Pakistan -- in Peshawar in particular -- on a global scale that implies your means might be quite humble indeed.
Quite possibly some of these kids wouldn't have a computer at home. In our ever-interconnected world, lessons in this room could have been some of the most valuable to their futures.
And that's it. I'm standing there realizing they have no futures now.
The base horror that took place here is startlingly and immediately evident. Chairs still at computers, thick blood pooled underneath on the tile floor.
The gunmen came in and before the children could escape opened fire.
As I try to explain all this on camera, I can feel my voice cracking. It's not a conscious thing, its what the brain does, a self-defense maybe. Such a horrible waste of so many bright futures, so many parents in pain.
It hurts, and there is no getting away from it.
