Pakistan government departments were warned of school attack in August

PESHAWAR: Authorities in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were warned of an imminent revenge attack on the army-run school here months before a Taliban-sponsored carnage claimed 148 lives, mostly that of children.

A copy of the written warning, issued on August 28, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Home Ministry had stated that Taliban militants have planned to attack educational institutions under the Pakistani army and their intention was revenge.

The militants wanted to kill as many children of army officers as possible, the warning stated.

The alert No 802 named Khaksar, Taliban commander in Orakzai -- a part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas -- along with terrorists Bilal and Obaidullah to have hatched a plan to attack the institutions, Geo News reported.

The report said Bilal and Obaidullah with their accomplices had also conducted reconnaissance of the targets.

The written warning had called for security measures to be made in advance to avoid any untoward incident and copies were sent to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, home minister and law enforcement agencies.

On December 16, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan militants carried out the most horrific terror attack in Pakistan's history.

The TTP militants killed 148 people, most of them children, at the Army Public School in Peshawar. They said the assault was a revenge for the Pakistan army's ongoing military operation in the north.

Following the attack, government and political parties expressed a renewed resolve to fight terrorism in the country.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lifted a 2008 moratorium on the death penalty in terror-related cases in the aftermath of the attack. So far Pakistan has executed six militants. More convicts of the terror cases are likely to be sent to the gallows in the coming days.