Taliban shoot 14-year old Pakistani peace campaigner

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Jibran Ahmad | Reuters


http://i.imgur.com/v4OeB.jpg

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Taliban gunmen in Pakistan shot and seriously wounded on Tuesday a 14-year-old schoolgirl who rose to fame for speaking out against the militants, authorities said.

Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head and neck when gunmen fired on her school bus in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad. Two other girls were also wounded, police said.

Yousufzai became famous for speaking out against the Pakistani Taliban at a time when even the government seemed to be appeasing the hardline Islamists.

The government agreed to a ceasefire with the Taliban in Swat in early 2009, effectively recognizing insurgent control of the valley whose lakes and mountains had long been a tourist attraction.

The Taliban set up courts, executed residents and closed girls' schools, including the one that Yousufzai attended. A documentary team filmed her weeping as she explained her ambition to be a doctor.

"My friend came to me and said, 'for God's sake, answer me honestly, is our school going to be attacked by the Taliban?'," Yousufzai, then 11, wrote in a blog published by the BBC.

"During the morning assembly we were told not to wear colorful clothes as the Taliban would object."

The army launched an offensive and retook control of Swat later that year, and Yousufzai later received the country's highest civilian award. She was also nominated for international awards for child activists.

Since then, she has received numerous threats. On Tuesday, gunmen arrived at her school and asked for her by name, witnesses told police. Yousufzai was shot when she came out of class and went to a bus.

Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said his group was behind the shooting.

"She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol," Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

"She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas," he said, referring the main ethnic group in northwest Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. Most members of the Taliban come from conservative Pashtun tribes.

Doctors were struggling to save Yousufzai, said Lal Noor, a doctor at the Saidu Sharif Teaching Hospital in the Swat valley's main town of Mingora.

[DemonGeminiX]

And the Pakistani's don't want our help in hunting these fuckers down inside their borders.

:|

[Hal-9000]

It was a designated hit...ffs these animals need some racial cleansing, North American style.


"On Tuesday, gunmen arrived at her school and asked for her by name, witnesses told police. Yousufzai was shot when she came out of class and went to a bus."


:(

[Noilly Pratt]

I was really disappointed that there isn't more of an outcry, more of a world outrage of this. If she dies she will become a martyr -- something the Taliban can surely do without if they're thinking.

If they were hoping for any sympathy from the world, consider that possibility eroded...

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By RIAZ KHAN | Associated Press


http://i.imgur.com/jU2CL.jpg

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani doctors successfully removed a bullet Wednesday from the neck of a 14-year-old girl who was shot by the Taliban for speaking out in support of education for women, a government minister said.

A team of army and civilian surgeons have been treating Malala Yousufzai in a military hospital in Peshawar where she was airlifted after the Tuesday shooting in her hometown of Mingora in the country's volatile Swat Valley.

The operation to remove the bullet took hours because there were complications, said the information minister in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

"She is improving. But she is still unconscious," he said. "I can't say a final word about her condition. A board of doctors is constantly examining her condition."

Hussain said there was no decision yet whether the girl needed to be taken abroad for further treatment.

Malala is admired across Pakistan for exposing the Taliban's atrocities and advocating for girls' education in the face of religious extremism. On Tuesday, a Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school and shot her in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.

The country's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, visited the hospital to get a first-hand account of her condition, the military said in a statement.

"In attacking Malala, the terrorist have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage and hope who vindicates the great sacrifices that the people of Swat and the nation gave, for wresting the valley from the scourge of terrorism," Kayani said in the statement.

He also vowed that the military would not bow to terrorists like those who shot the young activist.

"We will fight, regardless of the cost we will prevail," he said.

The strongly-worded statement was extremely rare for the reticent Kayani and a sign of how strongly Malala's shooting has affected Pakistanis across the religious, political and ethnic spectrum.

Malala began writing a blog when she was just 11 under the pseudonym Gul Makai for the BBC about life under the Taliban, and began speaking out publicly in 2009 about the need for girls' education. The Taliban strongly opposes education for women, and the group has claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack.

Private schools in the Swat Valley were closed Wednesday in a sign of protest over the shooting and in solidarity with Malala, said Ahmed Shah, the chairman of an association of private schools.

At one time the picturesque Swat Valley — nicknamed the Switzerland of Pakistan — was a popular tourist destination for Pakistanis. Honeymooners vacationed along the river running through the valley.

Then the Taliban in 2007 began infiltrating the valley just 280 kilometers (175 miles) from the capital, eventually assuming near-total control of the region before being ejected in a massive Pakistani military operation.

The takeover, as well as the Taliban's brutal treatment of civilians in the region, shocked many Pakistanis, who considered militancy to be a far-away problem in Afghanistan or Pakistan's rugged tribal regions.

But Tuesday's attacked demonstrated that the Taliban have not been eradicated from the valley and are trying to make their presence felt even three years after the offensive to oust them.

Malala was nominated last year for the International Children's Peace Prize, which is organized by the Dutch organization KidsRights to highlight the work of children around the world. She also was honored last year with one of Pakistan's highest awards for civilians for her bravery.

[Southern Belle]

Fucking barbarians, the lot of them.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Laura Smith-Spark, CNN


http://i.imgur.com/FRNpX.jpg

London (CNN) -- Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai stood for the first time after her shooting Friday morning and is "communicating very freely," according to the director of the UK hospital where she is undergoing treatment.

Malala can't talk because she has a tracheotomy tube inserted to protect her airway, which was swollen after her gunshot injury, but she is writing coherent sentences, said Dave Rosser, director of University Hospitals Birmingham.

"We have no reason to believe she won't be able to talk when the tube is out, which may be in the next few days," he said.

She "is not out of the woods yet" but is doing very well, he added.

The latest progress report -- more detailed than previous updates -- suggests that the schoolgirl shot after she defied the Taliban by insisting on the right of girls to go to school could make a good recovery.

There "is certainly physical damage to the brain" from the bullet that entered Malala's head, Rosser said, but she appears to be functioning well intellectually and has the motor control to stand, with help from nurses.

"Whether there's any subtle intellectual or memory deficits down the line, it's too early to say," he said.

Rosser said Malala, who is aware of her surroundings and appears to have some memory of what happened, had agreed that the hospital could tell the public more about her medical condition.

"She is keen that people share the details. She is also keen that I thank people for their support and their interest because she's obviously aware of the amount of interest this is generating around the world," he said.

One of the first things she asked nurses Tuesday afternoon, as she gradually regained consciousness, was what country she was in, he said.

"There is every sign that she understands why she's here," he said. "It's a very difficult position for her because she's gone from being on her school bus, and the next thing she will be consciously aware of is being in a strange hospital in a different country. So she seems to have understood why she is no longer in Pakistan and what is happening to her."

Malala has spoken to hospital staff in Urdu and also seems to understand English, he said.

Many well-wishers have sent messages of support for the teen, and the hospital has set up a bank account to receive donations.

In terms of Malala's care, the key concern for doctors at present is to treat signs of infection probably related to the path the bullet took through her body, Rosser said.

The bullet entered above the back of her left eye, traveled down through her jaw and into her left shoulder, lodging in the tissue above her shoulder blade, he said. Her skull and jaw were damaged by its passage.

MRI scans also show that the bullet grazed the side of her brain, he said, although in such cases, most of the damage tends to be caused by shock waves from the shot.

The hospital is trying to arrange for the 15-year-old to listen to her father on the phone, although she cannot speak because of the tracheotomy tube, he added.

Malala is likely to spend another couple of weeks recovering before the team of specialist doctors considers reconstructive surgery on her skull, either using a piece of bone that was initially removed or a titanium plate, Rosser said. She may also need surgery on her jaw joint in future.

"It certainly would be over-optimistic to say there won't be any further problems, but it is possible she will make a smooth recovery," he said.

Doctors and nurses are trying very hard to limit communication to her medical needs rather than risk setting back her recovery by discussing the trauma of the attack, he said.

The shooting in the northwestern district of Swat last week, which left Malala battling to recover from her injuries, generated a wave of shock and anger in Pakistan and around the world.

The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the act, but they didn't appear to have anticipated the level of revulsion and condemnation that it would provoke.

Thousands of people joined in rallies across Pakistan in support of the wounded teen, and calls have grown for a strong response from the government.

Authorities are investigating the attack and say they have made a number of arrests.

[redred]

soon she'll be able to go home?

[FBD]

Yep, and get shot at again, unfortunately.

[redred]

better make sure Pakistan pays the medical bill first then

[Teh One Who Knocks]

If I was her, I would just seek asylum in the UK or some other western country. I would never want to go back to that shithole of a place.

[redred]

maybe the UK as she's already here :tup:

[redred]

and now her family have started to find jobs over here:roll:

Malala Yousafzai's father gets Birmingham consulate job

The father of a Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by a Taliban gunman has been given a job in Birmingham.

Ziaududdin Yousafzai has been appointed education attaché at the Consulate of Pakistan in the city, the Pakistan government has announced.

His daughter Malala, 15, was treated in Birmingham after being shot in the head in the Swat Valley on 9 October 2012.

The Taliban said it shot Malala, a campaigner for girls' education, for "promoting secularism".

Doctors said the bullet grazed the teenager's brain when it struck her just above her left eye.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-20894786

[Hal-9000]

that girl is going to end up on a shrine or a piece of currency...and I mean that in a good way :thumbsup:

[redred]

What replace the queen on our money ? I give up :facepalm:

[Softdreamer]

What replace the queen on our money ? I give up :facepalm:

We have Hal on our banknotes? :-k