Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old school girl sought out and shot by the Taliban for blogging against them, was slowly recuperating Wednesday morning from the brazen attack that almost snatched her young life.
Doctors successfully removed a bullet lodged in her neck after three hours of surgery, and said her condition was no longer critical.
"God willing, she will survive," said Dr. Mumtaz Ali, a neurosurgeon who worked on Malala with three colleagues.
Pakistan is a country numbed by the depressing regularity of extremist attacks. But the Tuesday morning attack stunned even the weariest.
Taliban militants stopped a school van carrying Malala and two other girls on their way home from school in northwest Pakistan's Swat Valley.One of them asked, who is Malala Yousufzai?
When the girls pointed Malala out, the men opened fire. The bullets struck all three girls.
For two of them, the injuries were not life-threatening.
For Malala, it was touch-and-go for a while.
Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani paid a visit to her hospital bed, and delivered a simple message: "We refuse to bow before terror."
The chief minister of Punjab said he would bear the cost of Malala's treatment, calling her "the daughter of Pakistan."
14-year-old activist wounded by Taliban
Taliban gunmen shot teen activist
The head of PIA, the national airline, said he was putting a plane on standby to take Malala "anywhere in the world if needed" for treatment.
And two neurosurgeons, one in the United Stated and one in the United Kingdom, have offered to fly to Pakistan if needed, the interior minister said.
Throughout the country and around the world, Pakistanis, hurt and angry, prayed.
"Malala is what Taliban will never be," said Murtaza Haider, the associate dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto's Ryerson University, in an opinion piece in the Dawn newspaper.
"She is fearless, enlightened, articulate, and a young Muslim woman who is the face of Pakistan and the hope for a faltering nation that can no longer protect its daughters."
Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley was once one of Pakistan's biggest tourist destinations.
The valley, near the Afghanistan border and about 186 miles (300 km) from the capital city of Islamabad, boasted the country's only ski resort. It was a draw for trout-fishing enthusiasts and visitors to the ancient Buddhist ruins in the area.
But that was before, militants -- their faces covered with dark turbans -- unleashed a wave of violence.
They demanded veils for women, beards for men and a ban on music and television.
They allowed boys' schools to operate. But closed those for girls.
It was in this climate that Malala reached out to the outside world through her online blog posts.
She took a stand by writing about her daily battle with extremist militants who used fear and intimidation to force girls to stay at home.
Malala's online writing led to her being awarded Pakistan's first National Peace Prize in November.
"I was scared of being beheaded by the Taliban because of my passion for education," Yousufzai told CNN at the time. "During their rule, the Taliban used to march into our houses to check whether we were studying or watching television."
She said that she wanted to be a political leader, that her country "needs honest and true leaders."
The Taliban controlled Malala's valley for years until 2009, when the military cleared it in an operation that also evacuated thousands of families.
But pockets remain, and violence is never far behind.
"In attacking Malala, the terrorists have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage and hope, who vindicates the great sacrifices that the people of Swat and the nation gave, for wresting the valley from the scourge of terrorism," said Kayani, the army chief.
The Taliban has already claimed responsibility for the attack on Malala's life. And on Wednesday, as police took the van driver and the school guard into custody for questioning and said they have identified the culprits, they issued another ominous threat.
Responding to reports that Malala had survived the attack, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said, ""if she survives this time, she won't next time.
We will certainly kill her."
Culled from CNN
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