Pakistan: surgeons remove bullet from girl wounded in Taliban attack

Pakistani doctors on Wednesday morning successfully removed a bullet from the neck of a 14-year-old girl who was the victim of an assassination attempt by the Taliban, because of her advocacy on behalf of girls and women. Army and civilian surgeons treated Malala Yousufzai in a military hospital in Peshawar where she was airlifted after the Tuesday shooting in her hometown of Mingora in the country's volatile Swat Valley. Listen to our report:

Malala is admired across Pakistan for exposing the Taliban's atrocities and advocating for girls' education in the face of religious extremism. When she was 11 years old, Malala began writing a blog for the BBC about life under the Taliban, and began speaking out publicly in 2009 about the need for girls’ education.

On Tuesday, a Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school and shot her in the head and neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.

The Taliban began infiltrating Swat Valley In 2007, and eventually achieved near-total control of the region before a massive military operation with Pakistani government forces pushed the Taliban out.