Postpublished at 16:27 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Image source, AFPIn Islamabad, activists and journalists lit candles in memory of the Peshawar victims, demanding an end to violent attacks.
Summary
Officials say more than 140 people, mostly children, have been killed in a Taliban attack on an army-run school in north-west Pakistan
Pakistan's security forces say their operation has now ended, with all seven attackers killed
Some pupils, who escaped, earlier said the gunmen went from classroom to classroom, shooting children indiscriminately
The Taliban say the assault is in response to army operations in North Waziristan and the Khyber area. All times GMT
Postpublished at 16:27 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Image source, AFPPostpublished at 16:21 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
The number of people killed in the Peshawar assault has now surpassed the previous worst terrorist attack in Pakistan's history - the tragedy on the Meena bazaar in 2009, the Guardian reports, external.
Postpublished at 16:12 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
British Prime Minister David Cameron says the school attack is a "a dark, dark day for humanity".
Postpublished at 16:11 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
The militants made no demands; they started killing children as soon as they entered the school, the Pakistani army is quoted as saying by Reuters.
Breaking Newspublished at 16:09 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Pakistan's army spokesman Asim Bajwa says 132 children and nine staff members were killed in the attack.
Postpublished at 16:07 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Shaimaa Khalil
BBC News, PeshawarWhat we are yet to know is whether all the children have been evacuated or if some are still in the school. That is really what many of the parents here [at the school] are worried about - they want to know if these other children are OK.
BBC Outside Sourcepublished at 16:01 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
tweets:, external AUDIO: Eyewitness at #Peshawar hospital says 1000s trying to donate blood http://bbc.in/16pyCmF, external pic.twitter.com/EwqnXpsCyg
Image source, EPAPostpublished at 15:54 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein - the first Muslim and the first Arab to hold the office - accuses the Taliban of "sinking to an all-time depth" in carrying out the attack. He says the group's ideology "bears no resemblance to any religion or any cultural norm".
Capital TVpublished at 15:39 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
tweets:, external The security personnel are now carrying out clearance operation: our correspondent Muhammad Shoaib reports #PeshawarAttack
Postpublished at 15:37 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
The Pakistani Taliban has grown more extreme and violent as its circumstances have grown more dire, the Guardian's Jason Burke, external reports. He says that the movement has recently been divided by bitter internal competition and that when militants organisations do this, they "often become more extreme as individual commanders and their followers seek to prove themselves the most effective, and the most audacious".
Street patrolspublished at 15:36 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Image source, AFPAlthough the army says the attack on the school is now over, soldiers are continuing to patrol the streets of Peshawar.
Postpublished at 15:28 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon describes the attack as "an act of horror and rank cowardice to attack defenceless children while they learn". He adds that "no cause can justify such brutality and no grievance can excuse such horror".
Postpublished at 15:27 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani condemns the attack as a "wild act". He says killing innocent children is an absolutely un-Islamic and inhuman act. The BBC's Mike Wooldridge says that both Afghanistan and Pakistan face continual attacks by their respective Taliban movements, and both have frequently accused each other of supporting militant extremism.
Postpublished at 15:25 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid tells the BBC the Taliban raid was "a revenge attack, as many children in the school are sons and daughters of army officers". Mr Rashid adds it was also "an attempt to unify the Taliban, who are currently divided"
Postpublished at 15:16 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Image source, APEarlier in the day, Pakistani troops sealed off the area, taking up positions around the school in Peshawar.
Get in touchpublished at 15:12 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Mohammed Tayyab (@tayyabm76) in Islamabad tweets, external: "This has shaken us.. badly shaken. Whoever i am talking to, is in tears... We, as a nation must change our direction."
Postpublished at 15:11 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
"The carnage struck at the heart of Pakistan's military - one of the nation's most highly respected institutions - which is seen as the guardians of stability in a turbulent region and an important bridge between Pakistan and Western allies such as the United States," the Washington Post reports., external
Postpublished at 15:06 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Image source, APShocked relatives have been waiting outside Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital - desperate to hear about the fate of their loved ones.
Postpublished at 15:03 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
"This is the world's loss," Mr Kerry says. "This act of terror angers and shakes all people of conscience, and we condemn it in the strongest terms possible."
Postpublished at 15:02 Greenwich Mean Time 16 December 2014
Following on from President Obama, US Secretary of State John Kerry describes the attack as "absolutely gut wrenching... A house of learning turned into a house of unspeakable horror".