Children. Herded down the corridors of their own school in a battery farm slaughter. More than 120 young lives cut short by a team of murderers under orders to spare only the younger kids.
Even by the standards of Pakistan's Taliban, this was an atrocity of unprecedented scale. But it cannot be seen as coming out of the blue.
The Taliban has a reputation for extreme brutality and for hating schools. According to a report from the Pakistani intelligence agencies in 2013, the movement had destroyed 1,030 schools in the west of the country over the previous four years.
The mainly Pashtun movement has its roots in rebellion against the Soviet invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan in 1979. But it has mutated, turning on its original sponsors in Islamabad and now violently pursues the drastic further Islamisation of Pakistan.
In 2010, it killed 105 spectators at a volleyball match. Dozens were killed by gunmen who swept through a church in Peshawar three years later.
But they have been driven back lately. And this has spurred their atrocities to greater levels.
A military campaign ordered by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif earlier this year is intended to wipe the Taliban out altogether. Lately it has, from the government's perspective, been going well.
Hundreds of militants have been killed as the army has driven them back towards their heartland in the Swat valley.
The Taliban's long campaign against the central government was beginning to weaken. So it sought invigoration in horror.
Perhaps in an effort to appeal to younger recruits who may have been tempted by the propaganda coming from the Middle East, from the death cult known as Islamic State (IS).
In October, the Pakistani Taliban issued a statement that it supported IS. It did not join it.
"Oh our brothers (in IS), we are proud of you in your victories," Pakistani Taliban spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said.
"All Muslims in the world have great expectations of you ... we are with you, we will provide you with Mujahideen (fighters) and with every possible support."
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Gallery: Taliban In Deadly School Raid
Pakistani men help an injured student to a hospital following an attack by Taliban gunmen on a school in Peshawar
Rescue workers and family members carry the coffin of a student, who was killed during the attack
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