AK-47s at Malala’s house show why she is in Britain

MINGORA, Pakistan: Two policemen with AK-47 rifles stood guard in the narrow ally outside of Malala Yousafzai’s uncle’s house in Pakistan this weekend, watching for anything suspicious after she became the first teenager to win a Nobel Peace Prize.
Yousafzai, 17, celebrated the award some 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) away in Britain, where she’s lived since Taleban militants shot her in the face on the way to school two years ago. She plans to stay away from Pakistan for at least another three years, according to Mahmudul Hassan, her uncle.
“Apparently security is fine. Still we can’t risk her life,” he said at his home in Mingora, a town in the northwest Swat River valley, where Pakistani Taleban militants briefly took power five years ago.
Pakistan’s battle with Taleban militancy is far from over, with an army offensive in June near the Afghan border doing little to ally fears in Mingora. A rally two days ago for Yousafzai, who shared the award with Indian child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, attracted only several dozen people.
“Targeted killings are still taking place,” Ahmed Shah, a private school principal who led the rally two days ago, said in an interview. “Members of the tribal council, politicians, opinion-makers are being shot dead. In such an environment, how can people come onto the streets?“
Five years ago, Swat’s scenic mountains, rivers and lakes became infiltrated. They denied education to girls, beheaded local officials and burned schools in a battle that uprooted 2 million people from their homes in the forested valley that sits 155 miles north of the capital Islamabad. While a 10-week army offensive starting in May 2009 ended their rule, Taleban strikes remained common. Militants attacked Yousafzai in October 2012 on her way to school in retaliation for her campaign for girls to be given equal rights to education. The bullet struck just above her left eye, grazing her brain. She flew to the UK for emergency treatment, where she now attends school in Birmingham. As she gained global fame for her struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, resentment grew in Pakistan. Critics said the US and other western countries were using her to disparage local culture.
Those sentiments manifested after the peace prize. Amirul Azeem, a spokesman for the religious Jamaat-e-Islami party, asked why Yousafzai won the award over Palestinian children who continued attending school amid persistent violence.