Young Pakistan Women's Education Advocate Shot by Taliban Transported to London

The Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head and neck by the Taliban is today on her way to Britain for treatment.

Malala Yousafzai, 14, was seen leaving a military hospital in Rawalpindi on a trolley this morning before being driven to the airport.

She is travelling to the UK in a specially equipped air ambulance along with a British medical team who flew out to accompany her.

The teenager, an outspoken advocate for girls’ education and critic of the Taliban, is due to touch down at around 3.30pm.

She will then be taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham for treatment.

Malala has already had a bullet removed from her body after she was shot last week.

But experts believe damaged bones in her skull will have to be repaired or replaced and she will need intensive rehabilitation.

Her horrific ordeal has touched millions of people around the world who admired her extraordinary bravery in standing up to the Taliban.

Malala was shot on a school bus last Tuesday in the northwestern district of Swat.

Two classmates who were with her were also injured in the gunfire.

Malala earned the enmity of the Taliban for publicising their behaviour when they took over the northwestern Swat Valley, where she lived, and for speaking about the importance of education for girls.

The group first started to exert its influence in Swat in 2007 and quickly extended its reach to much of the valley by the next year.

They set about imposing their will on residents by forcing men to grow beards, preventing women from going to the market and blowing up many schools - the majority for girls.

Malala wrote about these practices in a journal for the BBC under a pseudonym when she was just 11.

After the Taliban were pushed out of the valley in 2009 by the Pakistani military, she became even more outspoken in advocating for girls’ education.

She appeared frequently in the media and was given one of the country’s highest honours for civilians for her bravery.

The military carried out its offensive in Swat after a video surfaced of a militant flogging a woman who had allegedly committed adultery, which helped mobilize public support against the Taliban.

Many hope the shooting of Malala will help push the military to undertake a long-awaited offensive in the Pakistani Taliban's last main sanctuary in the country in the North Waziristan tribal area.

The police station attacked by the Taliban on Sunday night was located in the small town of Matni, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Peshawar, said police officer Ishrat Yar. The militants were armed with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and assault rifles.

One of the policemen who was beheaded was a senior official who commanded several police stations in the area and was leading reinforcements against the attack, said Yar. Another 12 policemen received gunshot wounds.

The militants burned the police station and four police vehicles before they escaped, said Yar.

A Pakistani Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Afridi, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the police were targeted because they had killed several militants.

The Taliban have carried out hundreds of attacks throughout Pakistan but the attacks rarely include such a high number of militants as in the assault on the police station in Matni.

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