Peshawar:The Pakistani Taliban has threatened to follow Tuesday's murderous attack on an army-run school in the northern city of Peshawar with yet more violence against the army and security forces.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, accused the government of killing Taliban fighters in prison and detaining their family members and demanded that the Pakistani army halt its offensive into North Waziristan. In a

A soldier walks past blood on the auditorium floor at the Army Public School, which was attacked by Taliban gunmen.

As the death toll from the Peshawar massacre rose to 144 – mostly schoolchildren – Pakistan's government on Wednesday lifted a moratorium on executing convicted terrorists.

About 8000 convicts languish on death row in Pakistani prisons, one of the world's largest death-row populations, including more than 3000 convicted terrorists. Pakistan's ceremonial president, Mamnoon Hussain, responded immediately on Wednesday by rejecting mercy petitions filed by eight convicted terrorists in 2012, and his office ordered the administrators of the prisons where they're being held to carry out the executions, the Pakistani media reported.