Peshawar School Massacre Plotter Warns Of More Attacks As Pakistani Military Intensifies Offensive

Umar Mansoor, who is considered to be the mastermind behind the deadly school attack in Peshawar earlier this week, warned of further attacks unless anti-terrorism operations by the government were stopped.

Mansoor reportedly said in a video posted on the website of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) that if Pakistani agencies do not stop such attacks, the group’s militants will conduct more attacks similar to the one which targeted an army-run school earlier this week, India Today, a local Indian news network, reported.

Mansoor reportedly also said that the Peshawar attack was in retaliation to the anti-terror raids being conducted by the Pakistani military. Security officials, who intercepted the video, had reportedly identified Mansoor as the chief architect of the school attack.

"If our women and children die as martyrs, your children will not escape," Mansoor said in the video, according to India Today, adding: "We will fight against you in such a style that you attack us and we will take revenge on innocents."

Meanwhile, Pakistan's military killed seven militants from the TTP on Saturday in two separate raids conducted in the country's northwest, security officials said, according to media reports.

The first attack was conducted when military personnel raided a local neighbourhood in Shabqadar town, which lies about 18 miles from Peshawar. Two militants from TTP were killed in this attack, along with two security personnel, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. Rasheed Khan, a senior official, said that the militants had opened fire when police and paramilitary troops raided the hideout.

“A soldier of the Frontier Corps and a policeman embraced martyrdom in an exchange of fire with militants in Mechani neighbourhood of Shabqadar Saturday morning," Wilayat Khan, a local police official told AFP.

The second attack, which killed five TTP members including a local commander, was conducted at the Gujjar Gadi neighbourhood of Matni, nearly 16 miles south of Peshawar.

Earlier on Thursday and Friday, Pakistan's ground forces and jets had killed at least 77 militants in the tribal regions of the country’s northwest near the Afghanistan border.