Taliban shoot ‘liberal face’ of Mingora

DAILY TIMES

The Pakistani Taliban shot teenage children’s rights activist Malala Yousafzai in the head on her school bus in Mingora on Tuesday to avenge her campaigns for the right to an education in the militants’ former stronghold of Swat.

Many in the country reacted with shock and revulsion to the shooting of 14-year-old Malala, who was flown to intensive care in Peshawar after doctors said earlier she was out of danger. Police said two other girls were also wounded in the attack on Malala’s school bus, which the Taliban claimed, saying anyone who spoke out against them would suffer a similar fate. Malala won international recognition for highlighting Taliban atrocities in Swat with a blog for the BBC three years ago. Her struggle resonated with tens of thousands of girls who were being denied an education by militants across northwest Pakistan, where the government has been fighting local Taliban since 2007. She received the first-ever national peace award from the Pakistani government last year, and was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by advocacy group KidsRights Foundation in 2011. Malala, who earned global fame after she wrote ‘Swat Diary’ under a pseudonym during the Taliban-linked mayhem before the military regained lost ground in Swat in 2009, was airlifted to Peshawar where she was admitted to intensive neuro-care ward of a military hospital, said a military official. Doctors at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex in Mingora, where she received initial treatment, said the bullet penetrated her skull but missed her brain, and she was out of danger. Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP the group carried out the attack after repeatedly warning Malala to stop speaking out against them. “She is a Western-minded girl. She always speaks against us. We will target anyone who speaks against the Taliban,” he said by telephone from an undisclosed location. Local residents, quoting eyewitnesses, said a bearded attacker sought Malala’s identity from other schoolmates after stopping the bus which was full of schoolchildren. “The attacker was asking who is Malala Yousafzai,” the residents said. Local journalist Ghulam Farooq in Mingora said the attack stunned the Swat residents who thought military operation in the area had wiped out the militants. “Local residents are stunned by the attack,” he told