army unity taking on fighters in the area some 50 kilometers companies from peshawa. some attackers have also been killed. what is the latest right now? >> reporter: according to the latest reports, about 70% of the students have been evacuated from the compound. the first to respond to the attack was the elite police unit after which the commandos were sent in to clear the premises. according to the latest reports coming from the military, 90% of that compound has been cleared. however, they are still facing stiff resistance from those attackers from a particular section of the universities which also houses the hostels for both women and men. according to the reports, because of the heavy fog which was over the area, it was confusing in the first few hours as to what was really unfolding there. people were hearing loud explosions, gunfire as well, but we are told that the casualties are quite high. the attack is coming at i time when there was already a red alert for such an attack, and especially after that deadly attack on army public school which happened in dece

. >>> >>> at least 30 students and a professor are killed as a university comes under attack near peshawan pakistan >>> you're watch al jazeera live from doha. also on the program, iraq's prime minister vows to crackdown on sectarianism after reports of attacks on sunni businesses and mosques. china deobtains a swedish-- detains a swedish rights activist. the seench for a president. a palestinian reality

army units have been taking on fighters at the university some 50 kilometers from the city city of peshawa. six of the attackers have also been killed. a political analyst joins me live from islamabad. thank you for being with us. so what are your thoughts right now on what has emerged on this story so far and the ongoing issue of security in pakistan and the battle to root out these fighters? >> so far as you said, six terrorists have been killed. there are conflicting reports about the casualties, about the dead. some are reporting a higher figure while the government says 22/25 people are killed so far. 20 bodies have been shifted to the local hospital. eyewitnesses, if you go by them, they believe that the number of people killed can be much higher because the terrorists, they have gone into the has o hostel rooms, they went to university blocks and targeted people. it was done at 9.30 in the morning and the fighting with the terrorists and the security forces continued for more than three hours. so definitely the casualty figures can go higher. the problem i think, the security proble

and the plentier group over pakistan say they were behind the attack in the city of peshawa. >>> ttotunisian protests, unrest has spread to three other cities. in syria people trapped in areas close to the capital of damascus, tearing down homes to get fuel for fire. the number of villages being cut off by the syrian forces and their allies for two years. >> winter is harsh, scraps of wood, pieces of garbage, and anything that burns are pushed into the homemade stove. >> my dad and i made this heater. we don't have diesel fuel so we use garbage to make sure that my brothers and sisters stay warm. the smoke chokes us sometimes. >> they use old pipes and bits of metal to build the family's only source of warmth. it is almost impossible to get heating fuel. the things they would normally burn now cost far too much. you see the charcoal, we can't even use this. it is too expensive. >>> haggling used to go common at the market. but now since the airstrikes there are no negotiations. for most people prices are impossibly high. >> some of the wood here is from old houses. people are taking them dow

yesterday they attack a security check point in peshawa and a number of civilians were killed. also they are targeting the security people and four people were killed. recently i think we are observing that there is a type of surge in the terrorist attack in the country. so this is a big dilemma for the national leadership and at the moment when the national leadership is away from the country, the prime minister is outside the country. so the situation in pakistan, what we are watching on the screens and what you're observing in the media, i think everybody is just shocked that how the terrorist are still, they're operating within the cities or within the major population centers >>> the taliban have claimed responsibility for this. there had been renewed efforts to bring the taliban to talks, haven't there. tell us about those and where we're at with those. as you say, while this upsurge goes on. >> yes. i think this is that pakistan is trying to make it better between the iran tell ban and the iran government, but within pakistan i think the government is very clear about it