- In 2013, a bus carrying dozens of students from the women's university was bombed, killing 14 and injuring 19


Photographs taken yesterday show female students in Pakistan who are trained to use tanks and machine guns

Sitting atop a tank and peering down the barrels of machine guns - these are the female university students trained in the art of self defence.

Photographs taken yesterday of the training session show the group of women sitting on a military tank operated by the Pakistan Army as it travels along a dusty road.

Another shows them learning to aim and fire machine guns. Wearing earmuffs and with one foot planted firmly in front of the other, they are instructed by army soldiers.

The Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University in Quetta, established in 2004, is situated in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province.

In 2013, a bus carrying its students was bombed by a separatist faction, killing 14 people and injuring another 19.

In the wake of last year's Peshawar shootings - in which 145 people were gunned down - many schools began arming and training teachers how to operate guns. It was one of the worst terrorist atrocities in Pakistan's history - 132 of those killed in the December attack were schoolchildren.


The students, from Sardar Bahadur Khan Women's University in Quetta, are given the training by the Pakistan Army