Taliban threatens women activist and teenage girl

samaylive.com

Pakistani Taliban have threatened a woman and a teenage girl who had spoken out against the militants in their former stronghold of Swat even as they warned they would target the government and security forces if Osama bin Laden's widows were not freed from custody.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan threatened Shad Begum, who was among 10 women conferred the International Women of
Courage Award by the US, and Malala Yousufzai, the first recipient of Pakistan's new National Peace Prize.
Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said both of them were on the militants' "hit list". Shad Begum is a social worker from Lower Dir district, located a short distance from Islamabad.
The area was overrun by the Taliban in 2009 before the army launched an offensive to flush out the militants. Fourteen-year-old Yousufzai is a resident of the Swat Valley and came to prominence with her blog that detailed the atrocities of the Taliban.
Ehsan said Shad Begum and Yousufzai had backed the "imposition of secular" governance in Swat. "These women have been working for the vested interest of the West and have supported the imposition of secular rule in Swat Valley," he told the media in Pakistan's northwest.

The militant spokesman further said the Taliban would attack government and security officials if bin Laden's three
widows are not released from custody. He declared the slain al-Qaeda chief a "hero of Islam and warned officials against putting his family members on trial.

"If the family of Osama bin Laden is not released, we will attack the judges, lawyers and security officials involved in their trial," Ehsan said. He warned the militants would carry out suicide bombings against security forces and the government across the country.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik had on Thursday said authorities had charged bin Laden's widows with illegally entering and staying in Pakistan.
He said the widows and their children were being held in a house in Islamabad. Bin Laden was killed by US special forces during a raid in the garrison town of Abbottabad in May last year.
The Pakistani Taliban had carried out several high profile attacks after his killing, including a suicide assault on a naval airbase base in Karachi and an attack on paramilitary recruits in the northwest.