Pakistan hangs 4 suspected Taliban members over school massacre

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani security officials say authorities have hanged four militants who were sentenced to death over a Taliban attack on an army-run school last year that killed more than 150 people, mostly children.

The two officials said the men were executed Wednesday in the northwestern city of Kohat. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The executions came less than two weeks after Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked the country's president to reject the clemency petitions of the four "terrorists."

The Dec. 16 attack on the school in Peshawar was claimed by the Taliban and prompted Pakistan to lift a 2008 moratorium on the death penalty. Since then, Pakistan has hanged nearly 300 people, most of them convicted criminals, not militants.