by Our Foreign Desk

AT LEAST 20 people were killed yesterday when a Pakistani Taliban faction stormed a university in north-western Pakistan.

Police said the four gunmen who attacked Bacha Khan University in the town of Charsadda were also killed.

The assault began during the morning classes.

The attackers entered the university compound by climbing over back walls and shooting at a security guard before making their way to the administration building and the male students’ dormitories.

As police and soldiers rushed to the campus, the attackers traded gunfire with troops and several explosions were heard from the area of the university. The attackers were later contained inside two blocks where troops killed the four attackers.

Deputy Police Commissioner Tahir Zafar said a chemistry professor and a student were among those killed, adding that it was not initially clear how many attackers managed to penetrate the campus.

Charsadda lies about 20 miles from Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and scene of Tuesday’s Taliban suicide bombing that killed 11.

It was also the scene of the December 2014 school massacre that killed more than 150 people, mostly children.

Pakistani Taliban Peshawar commander Khalifa Umar Mansoor — said to be loyal to the Tariq Geedar Afridi faction — claimed responsibility for the attack within hours.

He said it was in revenge for the scores of militants who have been killed by Pakistani security forces in recent months.

But in signs of a split in the fundamentalist movement, spokesman for the main Fazlullah faction Mohammad Khurasani called the attack “un-Islamic.”

Mr Khurasani said that the Taliban “considers the students in the non-military institutions the future of our jihad movement” and would not kill them.

He called for the perpetrators to be tried before an Islamic court.

Pakistani army chief General Raheel Sharif visited the campus and a town hospital where the wounded were brought.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to fight to the end and destroy the Taliban and other militants.

“We are determined and resolved in our commitment to wipe out the menace of terrorism from our homeland,” he said.