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Injured Pakistani Peace Campaigner Moved To Better Hospital


Pakistani schoolgirl and peace campaigner Malala Yousafzai
Pakistani schoolgirl and peace campaigner Malala Yousafzai
A Pakistani teenage peace campaigner who was severely wounded in a Taliban attack this week has been moved from Peshawar to a military hospital in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, was moved to the best-equipped intensive-care department of the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology.

Experts have said she needed better facilities to recuperate from the operation to extract a bullet from her body.

A military doctor said Yousafzai was on complete ventilator support but her condition had significantly improved. He said the first seven to 10 days were critical in recovering from a head injury.

Yousafzai was unconscious in critical condition after being shot in the head and neck in Swat Valley as she returned home from school on October 9.

But doctors said she had moved her arms and legs slightly the night before.

Surgeons in Peshawar removed a bullet on October 10 from Yousafzai who was shot by the Taliban for speaking out against the militants and promoting education for girls.

The Taliban have accused Yousafzai of promoting secularism and have vowed to target her again.

Standing Up For Her Rights

Her shooting have sparked widespread protests and condemnation against the Taliban in Pakistan and internationally.

On October 10, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United States had offered any assistance necessary.

"Directing violence at children is barbaric, it's cowardly, and our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded as well as their families," Carney told reporters.

Yousafzai's shooting on a school bus has been denounced by the Pakistani authorities, who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her attackers.

Yousafzai began standing up to the Pakistani Taliban when she was just 11. She wrote a blog for the BBC's Urdu-language service about Taliban atrocities in 2009, when the government had effectively ceded control of the Swat Valley to the militants.

Yousafzai has spent the last three years campaigning for girls' education after the Taliban shut down girls schools. She received Pakistan's highest civilian award but also a number of death threats.

With reporting by AFP, dpa, and Reuters

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