Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by Taliban militants this week, was airlifted on Thursday to a leading military hospital in Rawalpindi, near the headquarters of the Pakistan Army.
The young activist, who was targeted because of her outspoken support for the education of girls in Pakistan's Swat Valley, remained in critical condition, unconscious and breathing with the help of a ventilator. She was moved to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi a day after surgeons in the provincial capital Peshawar successfully removed a bullet that had passed through her head and lodged in her shoulder.
An Urdu-language video report from Pakistan's Geo News included images of the airlift, as news of Malala's condition continued to grip the country.
Close friends of the family who were at the hospital in Peshawar told The Times that doctors there were more optimistic about Malala's chances of survival after the surgery, but said the next 24 hours are critical. A team of about 10 doctors is waiting to see if the extreme swelling in her head, known as severe edema, reduces. They added that the girl's breathing had improved after surgery but she still needed a ventilator.
One of her doctors, Mumtaz Khan, told Agence France-Presse, “The bullet has affected some part of the brain, but there is a 70 per cent chance that she will survive.â€
The operation, performed by Army surgeons with extensive trauma experience, included a procedur e known as decompressive craniotomy, in which part of the skull is removed to allow room for the brain to swell.
While there was no conclusive assessment of possible brain damage, Malala was moving her hands and feet, which suggests there is no paralysis, and she did verbally respond to a teacher immediately after the incident.
The News International, Pakistan's largest English-language daily, reports that a panel of Pakistani and British doctors made the decision to move the girl to Rawalpindi rather than a medical center abroad.
As our colleague Declan Walsh reported, there is widespread outrage in Pakistan about the shooting, in which two other girls were wounded. A video report broadcast on Wednesday by Pakistan's Express News showed supporters of the girl praying for her recovery.
The chilling effect of the shooting in the region remains hard to gauge. Abbas Nasir, who contributes to the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, reported on Twitter that one girl in Swat made a bold statement of defiance in a live interview on a Pakistani television station on Thursday.
Malala's classmate tells ARY: ‘Every girl in Swat is Malala. We will educate ourselves. We will win. They can't defeat us.'
- Abbas Nasir (@abbasnasir59) 11 Oct 12
If only those at the helm were as determined, as courageous.
- Abbas Nasir (@abbasnasir59) 11 Oct 12
These girls are a slap in the face of the cowards, of the appeasers, of those who choose to sit on the fence.
- Abbas Nasir (@abbasnasir59) 11 Oct 12
At about the same time, however, the BBC News correspondent Aleem Maqbool reported that attendance was down at a school for girls near the site of the attack on Malala.
flag at half mast at malala's school in swat. head of nearby school says half her pupils haven't attended since attack http://t.co/POpDaJlz
- Aleem Maqbool (@AleemMaqbool) 11 Oct 12
In a video report later on Thursday from outside Malala's school, Mr. Maqbool said: “All the students were given the last couple of days off to mourn, but also because so many of them were traumatized. And this feels like a city, Mingora, in the Swat Valley, that's been traumatized as well.†Residents, he said, were terrified that the army, which drove the Taliban out of the valley in 2009, would not be able to protect them against the fundamentalist militants.
Mr. Maqbool also noted on Twitter that the Pakistani's Taliban were engaged in an apparently unprecedented effort to justify their attack in a series of statements to the media.
never known pak taliban to is sue so many statements trying to justify an attack. now say they were ‘not targeting the girl but her ideas'
- Aleem Maqbool (@AleemMaqbool) 11 Oct 12
As Saeed Shah reported for McClatchy, Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban, sent a written statement defending the attack on the girl to reporters on Wednesday, as outrage over the shooting grew.
Relying on references to the Koran, Islamic history and Shariah â€" Islamic law â€" the statement, in English and containing eccentric capitalizations, misspellings and grammatically awkward phrases, left no doubt about the wide gulf that separates the Taliban from the mainstream of Pakistani thought.
“It's a clear command of Shariah that any female that by any means plays (a) role in war against mujahideen (holy warriors) should be killed,†the statement said. “Malala Yousafzai was playing a vital role in bucking up the emotions of Murtad (apostate) army and Government of Pakistan, and was inviting Muslims to hate mujahideen.â€
The statement cited passages from the Koran that the Taliban said justified the killing of children as well as women, and it said that killing someone engaged in rebellion against Islamic law was not just a right but “obligatory in Islam.â€
“If anyone thinks . . . that Malala is targeted because of education, that's absolutely wrong, and a propaganda of (the) Media,†the statement said. “Malala is targeted because of her pioneer role in preaching secularism and so called enlightened moderation. And whom so ever will commit so in future too will be targeted again by TTP.â€
The producers of the television program Bolta Pakistan posted the Taliban spokesman's complete, uncorrected statement on Facebook.
As Al Jazeera English reported, on Wednesday the regional government of the province where Malala was shot offered a reward of more than $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the gunman.
