Taliban Attack at Bacha Khan University in Pakistan Renews Fears

CAIRO — Attacks on education have long been a signature atrocity of the Pakistani Taliban, whose militants have set schools on fire, banished girls from classrooms and gunned down students at their desks in a quest to impose an extremist ideology on Pakistani society.

The height of the attacks seemed to come in December 2014 when gunmen swarmed through a school in Peshawar, massacring dozens of schoolchildren in an assault that prompted widespread revulsion and a fierce military crackdown on militants.