Malala Yousafzai: Accolades, applause and a grim milestone

A year ago Wednesday, Malala Yousafzai was riding the bus home from school when a Taliban gunman climbed aboard and shot her in the head. She nearly died.

Now, the 16-year-old advocate for girls’ education is a popular favorite for the Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded Friday.

To mark the anniversary of the shooting, her memoir, “I am Malala,” came out Tuesday. The phrase has become a battle cry for the right to an education around the world.

The memoir follows her odyssey from near-death to global fame in just a year’s time. It also gives a vivid account of her everyday life in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and how she developed a love for education.

Her public fight to get that education and for the right of girls to get one, too, is what put her at odds with the Pakistani Taliban.

They banned girls from schools in the Swat Valley in 2009. Malala anonymously blogged for the BBC in opposition to that order, drawing the Islamist militants’ rage.

The Taliban renewed their death threat against her Monday.

Spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said the teenager was targeted because she was used in propaganda against the Taliban.

“If there is any opportunity we can target, she would be on our hit list again.”

The Taliban have denied Malala was targeted for promoting education for girls.

“Taliban are not opposed to girls’ education, if it’s within the ambit of Shariah and Islamic education, but they could not support anti-Islamic agendas and Westernised education systems,” Shahid said.

The militant group destroyed over 170 schools between 2007 and 2009, the U.N. said.

Malala answers

In an interview with Malala on “The Daily Show” on Tuesday, Jon Stewart asked her what she would do if a Taliban assassin came calling again