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Islamabad urges Kabul to extradite Malala’s attacker

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has sought extradition of Mullah Fazlullah, a militant commander who planned the attack on teenager Malala Yousufzai and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has demanded Fazlullah’s extradition during her meeting with US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Mark Grossman.

Grossman was told that Fazlullah was involved in the attack and that the US should use its influence for his extradition, Geo TV reported on Monday.

Fazlullah and his associates have been hiding in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, and have carried out 15 cross-border attacks over the past one year, according to officials. They also said that the gunman involved in Malala’s attack has fled to Afghanistan.

Fourteen-year-old Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head by a Taleban gunman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province October 9.

She was on her way home from school when an attacker wearing police uniform stopped the school bus and opened fire at her. She was seriously injured.

The Taleban said they attacked Malala, Pakistan’s first National Peace Award winner, for “promoting secularism.”

She was flown into Britain for treatment aboard an air ambulance provided by the UAE. She is undergoing treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

Malala came to prominence in 2009 at the age of 11, when she started writing a diary for BBC Urdu about life under the Taleban.

Under the pen-name Gul Makai, she described the problems caused by militants who had taken control of the Swat Valley where she lived in 2007 and ordered girls’ schools to close, according to the BBC.

Meanwhile, the visiting US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has said the US will continue to work with Pakistan “to counter terrorism in the region”, Xinhua reported. “We have many shared interests including terrorism, supporting a stable and secure Afghanistan, increasing market access and economic opportunity, and supporting civilian democracy, tolerance, pluralism, and civil society”, Grossman was quoted by in a statement.

He expressed his appreciation for Pakistan’s support for an Afghan political process, including through the US-Afghanistan-Pakistan Core Group. “We want to work together to find ways to cooperate to make Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the region secure, stable, and prosperous,” the statement quoted the special envoy as saying after the meetings.

He said Pakistan and the US will also continue “important coordination” on the border to check militants’ movement.