Islamabad, Dec 18 (IANS): Although it was savagery at its worst, the Tuesday attack on a school by militants is not the first time terrorists have targeted educational institutions in Pakistan.

For long, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa - which includes Peshawar - and Fata bordering Afghanistan have witnessed militant violence targeting schools, the Pakistani media reported Thursday.

According to an International Crisis Group report, from 2009 to 2012, between 800 to 900 schools were attacked in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and tribal areas.

In most of these incidents, the extremists chose to strike empty schools, in a symbolic gesture, without causing many casualties, the Dawn said in an editorial.

It said that girls’ education had been a particular thorn for Islamists.

But it added that Fata and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were not the only areas where education had come under attack.

A school principal was killed in Karachi by suspected militants last year. Also in 2013, a terrorist assault on a university bus in Quetta killed a number of female students.

This year a suicide bomber targeted a school in Hangu but a young student, Aitzaz Hasan, confronted the bomber and tackled him.

"Unfortunately, this time around there was no Aitzaz to confront the monsters who stormed the Army Public School," the Dawn said.