The Taliban says yesterday's attack was in retaliation for a Pakistani military offensive on its strongholds near the Afghan border. The BBC's M Ilyas Khan, external has examined the background to the school massacre.

"Earlier this month the Pakistani army chief undertook a week-long visit to the US, and the US Congress extended a facility to fund Pakistani military operations against militants by a year," he writes.

"This came apparently after assurances that Pakistan would give up a policy - which it has long denied - of protecting some militant groups considered essential for its own strategic aims in the region."

Sahar Habib Ghazi
Journalist

tweets:, external @faisalchohan, external is trying to organize blood donations through the army & hospitals in Peshawar: http://floating-falls-4046.herokuapp.com, external

In Pakistan's neighbour, India, schools have organised tributes for the victims of the Peshawar attack. Here, children in Mumbai observe a few minutes of silence.

Terrorism is a problem for both countries. Mumbai was targeted in 2008 by militants, alleged by India to have been trained in Pakistan. Pakistan denied the claim, and the attack strained relations between the neighbours.

Image source, AFP

Shaimaa Khalil
BBC Pakistan Correspondent

tweets:, external Body of 14 yr old Abdullah carried to local grave yard. People shouting 'shaheed'-martyr and reciting Quran #peshawar

Image source, Shaimaa Khalil

The Pakistani writer Fatima Bhutto has written about yesterday's attack, external.

"There is no word for a parent who buries a child," she says. "No equivalent of widow or orphan in any language that I know, we do not have the language to describe a parent who lays his child into the earth before his time. So with what tongue do we speak of the dead now? It is a sorrow too large to bear."

Ms Bhutto comes from a prominent Pakistani political family. She lost her aunt, Benazir Bhutto, to a bomb attack that was also blamed on the Taliban.

More images from inside the school in Peshawar. Here is the auditorium again, where many of the children were shot.

Image source, AP

Pakistani army chief Raheel Sharif has arrived in Kabul for talks with Afghan leaders. There are suspicions that the Peshawar attack was masterminded by a Taliban leader based in Afghanistan.

The Taliban is an international organisation - with allied Pakistani and Afghan offshoots. Tackling the group will require collaboration between the governments of both countries - but their relationship has often been strained.

Pakistani Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai has been talking to the BBC about the Peshawar attack. The schoolgirl survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, who targeted her because she campaigned for the right to an education.

"Taliban doesn't know anything like condemnation," she says. "The more you condemn them the worse they are, the more violent they are."

She called on Pakistan's politicians to show unity and resolve in dealing with the militant group.

Amid calls for those who planned the attack to be brought to justice, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in cases of terrorism.

Mr Sharif is also chairing a meeting of the main political parties in Peshawar to discuss a response to the attack. There has been condemnation of the violence from across the political spectrum in Pakistan - prompting hope that this may be a turning point in the country's relationship with the Taliban. The Pakistani army has long denied nurturing militant groups for strategic aims.

Mishal Husain was the first journalist to be allowed into the school grounds. You can listen here to her description, external of what she found inside - an eerie scene of bloodstains and upturned chairs in what should be a lively place.

Mishal Husain
Presenter

The BBC's Mishal Husain has been tweeting, external from inside the school. She was granted access by the Pakistani army, which has just finished checking the site for explosives. In the auditorium where around 100 children were killed, she sees shoes and schoolbooks, external covered in blood.

Image source, BBC / Mishal Hussein

Welcome to our rolling coverage of the aftermath of the bloodiest Taliban attack in Pakistan's history.

Seven militants attacked an army-run school in Peshawar, killing at least 132 children and nine staff. The nation is in mourning.