Many children are feared dead in an attack by the Taliban on a military-run school at Peshawar in northern Pakistan.

The head of the regional government told local television channels that 84 children had been killed.

“In CMH (Combined Military Hospital) there are around 60 and there are 24 dead in Lady Reading (hospital),” Pervaiz Khattak is quoted as saying.

The country’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called the massacre a “national tragedy”.

A military official said some children were still being held hostage by Taliban gunmen.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said what he called its suicide bombers had instructions only to target military personnel.

The city of Peshawar lies not far from the Afghan border. The Pakistani Taliban are fighting to topple the government and set up a strict Islamic state.

One student described how they lay on the floor in an exam hall amid prolonged gunfire.

The Taliban said the attack was in revenge for a Pakistani military offensive in June in the North Waziristan region.

It said it had targeted the school because the army targeted its families, and “we want them to feel our pain”.