E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSGunmen hunted down young Malala Yousufzai at her school, shooting her in the head after she dared to criticize the extremists who are ravaging her country. NBC's Amna Nawaz reports.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- As a shocked Pakistan prayed for her recovery, Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for writing a blog about daily life in the war-torn Swat Valley, was still in a critical condition Wednesday after surgery to remove a bullet, her surgeon told NBC News.
Standing up for Pakistani school girl shot by Taliban
Doctors said her head, face and neck started swelling Tuesday night, prompting doctors to call an emergency meeting at 1 a.m. Wednesday (4 p.m. ET) when they decided to operate on her.
Surgery at the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar started at 2 a.m. and was completed at 5 a.m. Wednesday (5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday ET). The doctors' panel treating Malala, which includes military and civilian staff, is led by senior neurosurgeon Mumtaz Khan.
Talking to NBC News after the surgery, Khan said Malala's brain had started swelling as its left portion was damaged by the bullet.
He said they operated on the damaged part of her brain and neck and removed the bullet from her body.
A short documentary profiling an 11-year-old Pakistani girl on the last day before the Taliban closed down her school. (By Adam B. Ellick)
"Malala is still in critical condition and had been shifted to the intensive care unit of the hospital, but I am optimistic and by the grace of Allah she will recover," Khan said.
A plane is on standby at Bacha Khan International airport to take her to the United Arab Emirates for treatment if doctors decide this is necessary.
Girl shot by Taliban to be sent abroad for treatment, Pakistani president says
Malala was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize in 2011 for a blog she wrote under a pseudonym for the BBC's Urdu-language news service. She started writing it when she was just 11.
She also won the National Peace Prize in Pakistan, was honored with a school named after her, and quickly became an outspoken critic of the Taliban in Pakistan and a public advocate for peace.
ISPR via AFP - Getty Images
Soldiers carry Malala Yousufzai, 14, at an army hospital following an attack by gunmen in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Oct. 9, 2012.
In her blog, Malala chronicled life in the Swat Valley under the brutal and oppressive rule of the local faction of the Pakistani Taliban, who carried out public floggings, hung dead bodies in the streets, and banned education for girls.
In early 2011, the militants had added Malala to their hit list.
Nosheen Abbas, of BBC Urdu, told NBC News that Malala was "very passionate about education, and she spoke about that a lot to me."
"It angered her deeply when girls' schools were closed, and she was affected, and her class fellows were affected. She would talk about (hiding school bags)," she said.
"She was so open about what they were doing to her city, and she was so vocal about it -- that is what made her so threatening," she added.
Abbas tried to explain why the Taliban had reacted so strongly.
"When it's coming from a child, it's innocent, it's honest, it's open, and I think that's what was so threatening," she said of the blog.
"I think that code of honor that used to exist where women and children, they weren't attacked, they were honored in a way never touched. I think that no longer exists, I think that is what it shows," she added.
Pakistani school girls pray for the recovery of Malala Yousufzai in Multan, Pakistan on Oct. 10.
Grief across Pakistan
Meantime, the shooting drew a huge outpouring of reaction across Pakistan. The front pages of national newspapers carried pictures of a bandaged and bloody Yousufzai being brought to hospital. "Hate targets hope" the Express Tribune said in a headline.
Pakistan's president, prime minister, and heads of various opposition parties joined human rights group Amnesty International and the United Nations in condemning the attack.
"Pakistan's future belongs to Malala and brave young girls like her. History won't remember the cowards who tried to kill her at school," Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said on Twitter.
The attack was also condemned by many leaders of ethnic Pashtun tribes in northwest Pakistan.
"This attack is against Pashtun and Islamic practices," said Khurshid Kaka Ji, leader of a jirga, or tribal council, in Swat, a one-time tourist destination of peaks and meadows where the military has battled the Taliban intermittently since 2007.
"The security forces and police deployed should capture the attackers and punish them. If they do not catch these people, then the peace that Swat has gained through bloodshed will be shaken."
Reuters and NBC's Waj Khan contributed to this report from Islamabad.
More world stories from NBC News:
- Deadly crossing: Death toll rises among those desperate for American Dream
- More weapons in Syria could trigger 'all-out war'
- Hong Kong residents unhappy after US allows visa-free travel for Taiwanese
- Romney: Risk of conflict higher in Mideast after Obama policies
- NBC's Kerry Sanders answers questions about Chavez's re-election
- Thai princess clears shelves during 8-hour, $40,000 UK antique shopping spree
- 'It was an artistic statement': Vandal tags Mark Rothko painting at London museum
- Snipers, commandos to welcome Germany's tough-talking Merkel in Greece
- Stay informed: Sign up for our newsletter
Follow World News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
So afraid of women and the women's rights movement they shoot a 14-yr-old girl. I'm certain Allah will be as judgemental as they are when they go to their "reward". The vast majority of Muslims are in a real bind. Most probably remain silent for fear of their lives. But what kind of life is that ? There are other Muslims that have voiced and acted against the Taliban but too few, I fear, to make a real difference. If they choose to remain silent and passive in Taliban Hell simply to stay alive, they pay an awful price.
Taliban men are cowards, they attack women and children.
I pray for a violent, painful, long lasting tortuous death to every taliban a-hole on planet earth. these jackals/ghouls have no souls. they are sicker than then most screwed up sociopaths! I can truly say that if I ever meet one of these pukes I will snap it's neck like a twig and i won't loose 1 minute of sleep either. Rotting puss eaters!!!!!
AND would it not SOOOOOOoooooo poetic to have women torture them and talk down to them and their Puny Peepes while they squirm!
I am sorry but there IS time to DO UNTO OTHERS!
Punishments never seem to fit the crimes any more!
The Taliban are punks, through and through.
the taliban are all terrorists
Taliban, Al Queda = nazi zealots.
Muslim women are going to help over throw the Taliban. Christianity will win over their culture when this happens. Equal rights and more freedom is worth dieing for.
These dogs live amongst the populace in this country. The people who shelter and turn a blind eye are just as guilty as those who pull the trigger.
Isn't it time for the so called "silent majority" to take a stand? Clean up your own mess.
Allah speed your recovery little one.
Really, Taliban?!?!? Really?!? Can't scare real grown-ups anymore so you target young girls?!? Your mothers must be so proud, buncha cowards.
This really has nothing to do with the United States. I continue to pray for this girl and all the many children who have their childhoods strip from them because someone hates what little kids stand for. I bet, if you ask any child in the world, what they want for the world, their answer would be Peace for All of US KIDS. I cannot imagine how it is for a child who lives in a country where all they know is war and hate. These kids know it does not have to be this way.
Please! Help this girl she is standing up for something she believes in, if i had money and power i would try my hardest to get her over here...she deserves better!
These taliban say that they will get anyone who speaks against them. Come and get ME then, you child shooting, woman fearing, goat raping cavemen!!!!!! I spit in the eye of all of you, so called 'men' following a god that is probably wiping his buttocks with the souls of your fallen kin. I can only hope that he does the same to you as well. You're not worthy of a god that would have anything to do with mercy or justice. You don't know the meaning of such words. I'm not a follower of your so called prophet, or your fairy tale book. What I am is this: An admirer of a little girl who had far more brass than any of you. A believer in freedom of thought, freedom of education, freedom to ask the one question that all ignorant fools fear with all their cowardly hearts: WHY.
Just incase some one in Pakastan monitors this. After flying the girl out, ORDER your troops in, protect the rights this child dreamed about. Instead of worrying that you will be thought of as anti Islam. Try and show more of a backbone then a 14 year old that kept going to school with a price on her head. If you don't the shame is not the Taliban's but the MEN that are suppose to be the braver and strong then at least a 14 yr old.
In the few years she has been alive she has had more of a backbone than Pakistani leaders have in thousands of years.
What a shame. Apparently Muslims will try to destroy anyone that does not bow to them. The way they treat women and children are shameful. They treat their goats better than they treat their females. When I was in Iraq and Afghanistan it was nothing to see women and young girls get hit and kicked by these ignorant and lazy guys...I can't call them men because a real man wouldn't need to do that. All they want is to keep power and they think that fear is power.
Maybe we should put a bounty on the heads of these clerics, that way the farmers and residence in SWAT area would have a new source of income.
Hey everybody I got a great Idea, lets start a fund for the girl to raise money for a contract on the Taliban shooter. They are always putting contracts on everybody else so lets put one one the sick minded shooter and his friends who try to kill helpless little girls. They are a bunch of cowards.
I have read their book and it doesn't say anything about it being okay to kill Innocent people. they are not following the rules of their book. Allah is not happy with them. I know my Lord, God Almighty isn't happy with them either. So they have "two Gods" that are upset with them I pray that the Lord lays heavy mill stones around their necks and causes them to be sick inside every time they go to try to kill some body and the sickness only goes away when they repent to their "Allah and my Lord" for trying to hurt innocent people. May ALLAH NOT BE WITH THESE PEOPLE, MAY HE SHOW HIS BACK TO THEM AND CURSE THEM FOR THE COWARDS THAT THEY ARE.......
Taliban=cowardly beetches who kill innocents and talk others into being suicide bombs because they are too chicken sheet to do it themselves.
This typical, hatred filled, intolerance filled religion of Islam. If you are not with us and our ultra radical interpretation of the made up Koran, then you must die! Die, die, die. It doesn't matter if you are an innocent woman or child...just like their former leader said, "we don't distinguish those not wearing a military uniform from those who do." Basically just like every Muslim country in the world, every Muslim group in the world, and every Muslim in the world, there is no religous toleration, no respect for the opinions of others, and no regard or sanctity of human life. My thought...Muslims will start World War III not China, N. Korea, or Russia. Somehow, a Muslim group will get a hold of a nuclear weapon and detonate in or near Isreal; Isreal will react by nuking Iran (which I wouold have no problem with...they're all a bunch of radical idiots) and the rest of the Muslim world will jump to Iran's aid, then the US jump in on the side of Isreal triggering a response from China and Russia to jump in on the side of the Muslim world (because it will be the excuse they've waited for to attack us) and boom...WWIII. Basically, Muslims need to get over themselves.
When are people in these countries going to rise up and eliminate these scum? Or do they approve of killing children for wanting to watch TV, sing songs, and go to school? Any culture that tolerates dispicably inhuman acts against peaceful people for whatever reasons needs to be treated as a cancer upon civilized society and eliminated without fanfare. To do anything less is to encourage depravity and murder as the norm. Political correctness in this issue should be non-existent as should any other considerations of "cultural differences" or "honor killings" in any attempts to justify religious barbarism. Is it any wonder that these bloodthirsty cretins have managed to languish in the "Dark Ages" for the past 800 to 1000 years, while to rest of the world majority has evolved to enjoy "The Age of Enlightenment."? Fortunately, there will come a time of reconning between our societies, one that will be forced upon us due to their religion which calls for them to kill all non-believers. In essense, a final crusades. This time around we are obligated to do humanity and the world a favor and make sure the victory is total and complete.
i wish this girl was the 1st female to win the indy 500. THEN, have the taliban watch it ALL on tv, give em all something to (watch!) CHOKE ON!!!......
In semi-related news... (girls & women under Islam)
"Iranian women are no longer allowed to pursue certain majors -- including engineering, computer science, and accounting -- at the country's top universities."
From The Week magazine, October 5, 2012 edition, page 9.