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                    Taliban Shooting of Girl Shocks Pakistan

   by Sharon Behn

   Pakistanis are reacting with shock to the shooting of a teenage
   activist. A girl shot in the head by the Taliban for her "western"
   ideals remains in critical condition.

   By Wednesday, a team of Pakistani doctors had removed a bullet from
   Malala Yousafzai, but Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari vowed to
   send the 14-year-old girl abroad if doctors in Pakistan recommended
   moving her.

   Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Wednesday Yousafzai was in stable
   but critical condition. He said the government knew who the attackers
   were and vowed to track them down. "I promise to the nation that we
   won't let these people escape," Malik said.  "We will capture them and
   bring them to justice."

   The daylight attack shocked the country. Yousafzai, a young Muslim
   student, gained international and national fame for a blog documenting
   Taliban atrocities while her hometown in the northwestern area of Swat
   Valley was under the militants' control in 2008-2009. She remains an
   outspoken supporter of girls' education and rights.
   Wednesday, hundreds of people rallied in Islamabad in support of the
   teenage activist. Political and religious leaders, students and
   teachers across Pakistan swiftly condemned the shooting.
   University student and fellow Swat Valley resident Jawadullah Khan
   expressed his disgust. "The attack on Malala was a coward's act," he
   said, "because she was advocating for girls and education in Swat. It
   is an attack on Pakistan's youth," Khan stated.

   Taliban leaders claimed the assassination attempt in northwest Pakistan
   was in response to Yousafzai's "pro-West" ideology, her speaking out
   against the Taliban, and calling U.S. President Barack Obama her idol.

   The attack was front page news across Pakistan on Wednesday, with one
   English daily giving it the headline "Hate Targets Hope" and another
   newspaper describing Yousafzai as a "peace icon".

   Local TV channels also dedicated much of their coverage to the case,
   showing pictures of the young girl surrounded by doctors with a bandage
   wrapped around her head.

   International Crisis Group analyst Samina Ahmed says the government's
   inability to rein in militant groups was resulting in a spread of
   violent extremist attacks across the country, the most recent being
   that of Yousafzai.
   "Unless the weight of the law is thrown at these violent extremists,
   unless the state takes action, and it has to be across the board, then
   these groups will become far more dangerous, even more dangerous than
   they are now," Ahmed added.
   The Taliban led a violent campaign of control of the Swat area in
   2008-2009, marked by beheadings and attacks on girls' schools. It was
   that violence that then 11-year old Yousafzai wrote about in her blog
   published by the BBC under the pen name of Gul Makai.

   Pakistan's military in 2009 pushed the Taliban out of Swat. But
   militants have been returning to the region and further west, close to
   the Afghan border.

   Yousafzai won Pakistan's National Peace Award in 2011, and was
   nominated for the prestigious International Children's Peace Prize.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/taliban-shooting-of-girl-shocks-pakistan/1523929.html