Peshawar attack: As it happened

12:00 pm: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan claims responsibility, says the gunmen ordered to shoot older students. Troops blow up a wall, rescue some children and recover bodies.

3:30 pm: Three blocks of the school are cleared and efforts to clear the rest of the area under way. Hospitals in Peshawar fill with children, run short of blood.

4:00 pm: Series of blasts, more areas cleared, govt says militants confined to four blocks. Pakistan announces three days of mourning.

4:10 pm: Five of the militants by now killed, announces the army, which is posting a series of updates on Twitter. More children rescued.

7:30 pm: Govt says the siege is over, with all seven attackers dead. By now, 141 people have been killed.

SHOCK & RESOLVE

‘Strongly condemn the cowardly terrorist attack… A senseless act of unspeakable brutality that has claimed lives of the most innocent of human beings — young children…’

Narendra Modi, on Twitter

‘It was not just innocent children who have been massacred today, but the very conception of humanity’

Ministry of External Affairs

‘There never has been, nor will there ever be, a justification for terrorism… This dastardly and inhuman attack exposes the real face of terrorism’

Rajnath Singh, Home Minister

‘Government together with the army has started Zarb-e-Azb and it will continue until the terrorism is rooted out from our land’

Nawaz Sharif, Pak PM

‘The news from Pakistan is deeply shocking. It’s horrifying that children are being killed simply for going to school’

David Cameron, British PM

‘By targeting students and teachers in this heinous attack, terrorists have once again shown their depravity’

Barack Obama, US President

‘The killing of innocent children is contrary to Islam’

Ashraf Ghani, Afghan President