Posted on 10/10/2012 2:58:32 AM PDT by James C. Bennett
PESHAWAR: Pakistani surgeons removed a bullet on Wednesday from a 14-year-old girl shot by the Taliban for speaking out against the militants and promoting education for girls, doctors said.
Malala Yousufzai was in critical condition after gunmen shot her in the head and neck on Tuesday as she left school. Two other girls were also wounded.
Yousufzai began standing up to the Pakistani Taliban when she was just 11, when the government had effectively ceded control of the Swat Valley where she lives to the militants.
Her courage made her a national hero and many Pakistanis were shocked by her shooting.
Doctors said they were forced to begin operating in the middle of the night after Yousufzai developed swelling in the left portion of her brain.
They removed a bullet from her body near her spinal cord during a three-hour operation that they finished at about 5am (0000 GMT).
"She is still unconscious and kept in the intensive care unit," said Mumtaz Khan, head of a panel of doctors taking care of Yousufzai in a military hospital in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
One of the girls wounded with Yousufzai is in critical condition and the other is recovering and out of danger.
The military flew Yousufzai from her home in Swat, northwest of Islamabad, to Peshawar on Tuesday.
The shooting was denounced 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.
"Cowards"
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 US 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."
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack saying Yousufzai was "pro-West", had been promoting Western culture and had been speaking out against them.
They justified shooting her by citing instances from the Koran when a child or woman was killed.
"Any female that, by any means, plays a role in the war against mujahideen should be killed," said Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan, using the term for Islamic holy warriors to refer to the Taliban.
"We are dead against co-education and a secular education system."
President Asif Ali Zardari said he had directed that Yousufzai be sent abroad for medical care.
A special aircraft had been sent to Peshawar in case doctors say she should be moved to the United Arab Emirates, said Zaibullah Khan, general manager of the city's airport.
Imran Khan, a former cricketer turned politician who recently led a march into northwestern Pakistan protesting against U.S. drone strikes, said he was willing to pay for Yousufzai's medical treatment in Pakistan or abroad.
"Brave girl. Praying for her recovery," he said on Twitter.
It is hope against experience that a little girl like this who was brutalized by one of these taliban freaks will finally turn the tide in that part of the world.
When will these people finally learn.
Without the voice of reason, every faith is its own curse.
“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,”
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The cowards who tried to kill her should be remembered. They are Muslims ,Islamics if you will.
They were doing what Islam tells them to do.
Islamics who deny that are lying. Lying to the world and possibly lying to themselves. In this case she was shot. She may have been stoned for the same thing. This so-called religion is a blight on the world.A contagious disease of the mind, now getting to epidemic proportions. It must be segregated and isolated and destroyed.
Sooo, as per zero ‘The Taliban are at heel’?
Who on the planet is braver, I ask you!?! Wow we should all take lessons.
* . It must be segregated and isolated and destroyed.*
You know what to say
Susan Rice works for, and answers directly to, the man who recently told the UN General Assembly that “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam." This "future belonging to someone" stuff certainly is confusing.
Mr. niteowl77
She shows more courage than the average American voter. She also sounds very Christlike. May God bless her.
Muslim animals. Why doesn’t Obama condemn the real “war on women” promulgated by this death cult? We all know the answer to that.
This girl has more guts in her fingernail then
the entire US Congress (protectors of their own GREED
and the Islamic coup d’etat against the American people).
The solution is the same also!
OK....
and many Pakistanis were shocked by her shooting.
"Many"? as in 3? maybe, 4?
shari’a bump
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