Terrorist Victim Malala Leaves British Hospital
January 4, 2013
Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban, was discharged yesterday from a British hospital where she has been undergoing treatment since October 15. According to the hospital staff, she is well enough to be treated as an outpatient until she returns for surgery in several weeks.
Taliban gunmen targeted Malala for “promoting secularism” through her championing of girls’ education. She had kept a diary for the BBC’s Urdu service in which she had also highlighted the atrocities carried out by the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat valley.
The Pakistani government is paying for Malala’s treatment and for the upkeep of her family in the United Kingdom. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who visited her in the hospital in December, described her as a “remarkable girl and a credit to Pakistan.”
The Taliban, a militant Islamic political group, has declared its intention of targeting Malala again. The Taliban gained control of most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990′s and sought to turn it into an Islamic state. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the United States and its allies launched a military campaign against the Taliban and drove it out of Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the terrorist attacks, had been living in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban. Many Taliban members crossed the border to regroup in Pakistan, where they have frequently clashed with police and government troops. Taliban forces continue to battle NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Additional World Book articles:
- Terrorism
- Terrorism: America’s New Enemy (a special report)
