14-year old Swat Diary girl shot by Pakistan Taliban

by Salman Hameed

Couple of years ago, I had several posts about a fantastic and energetic 11-year old girl, Malala Yusufzai, in Swat that was campaigning for schools for girls. See the following posts about her:

A schoolgirl's odyssey
Short documentary about the school situation in Swat
Taliban, Education, and diary of a 7th grade schoolgirl from Swat

What was so amazing was her level of enthusiasm and her charm. No wonder, she got attention from the world over. But now a 14-year old, she was shot today by the Pakistani Taliban. This was not a result of any cross-fire between the rival groups or between the army and the Taliban. No - she was singled out in the bus and targeted. Yes, this 14-year old girl represented a big enough threat to the Taliban that they put her on their assassination list this past spring and made an attempt today. She suffered serious injuries, but has survived the attack:

 Ms. Yousafzai, who won a national peace prize last year, was shot in the head and the neck, while two other people on the bus suffered lighter injuries, local health officials said. After emergency treatment, Ms. Yousafzai was taken by helicopter to a military hospital in the provincial capital, Peshawar, where doctors said she was in stable but critical condition late Tuesday. 

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Ms. Yousafzai had been targeted for her criticism of the Taliban and because it considered her human rights campaigning to be an “obscenity.” 

“She has become a symbol of Western culture in the area; she was openly propagating it,” a Taliban spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said by phone from an undisclosed location. “She considers Obama as her ideal leader.”

The Taliban publicly placed Ms. Yousafzai on its assassination hit list this spring. Mr. Ehsan added that if she survived, the militants would try to kill her again. “Let this be a lesson,” he said.  

I hope this act would get an appropriate backlash against the Pakistan Taliban and their supporters. But what a tragedy. She is only 14!

Here are two videos by the New York Times from late 2009 that featured her along with the issue of girl's education in the Swat area:

A Schoolgirl's Odyssey:


And Class Dismissed in Swat Valley: