PESHAWAR, Pakistan – After almost 3,000 people were killed Sept. 11, 2001, President George W. Bush told world leaders that they were either with or against terrorists.
Pakistan, a country riven by competing impulses in a violent corner of the globe, has remained a bit of both. The storming of a military-run school in Pakistan’s northwest city of Peshawar on Tuesday, in which Taliban gunmen murdered 141 people, made clear the high price of that bargain to the country itself.
“This is a decisive moment in the fight against terrorism,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif told reporters here. “The people of Pakistan should unite in this fight. Our resolve will not be weakened by these attacks.”