Malala is still on a mission

The Taliban, intent on silencing Malala Yousafzai, shot her in the head.

It didn’t work.

The courageous Pakistani girl, an international champion for female education rights, survived that assassination attempt in the Swat Valley.

Slowly but surely recovering since that outrageous attack by the forces of radical Islamic terror, Malala, now 15 years old, was released from a hospital in Birmingham, England, last week.

A week or so earlier, she made it clear that she has no intention of giving up her mission. From her uplifting video:

“Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone and ... I am getting better day by day. It’s just because of the prayers of people. Because all people — men, women, children — all of them have prayed for me.

“And because of these prayers God has given me this new life ... and this is a second life. And I want to serve. I want to serve the people. I want every girl, every child, to be educated.”

That’s precisely what the Taliban doesn’t want. They prefer to keep females uneducated and unempowered in Pakistan, Afghanistan and anywhere else they can exert their vile power.

Malala, starting at age 11, dared to speak out against that injustice in blog posts read around the world. In response, the Taliban threatened her and her family.

Then, last Oct. 9, Taliban thugs tried to kill Malala. Stopping the bus she was riding on the way home from school, they shot her in the head and chest.

Malala’s “crime,” as the Taliban described it: She promoted “Western thinking.”

But that shooting backfired on the Taliban by drawing even more attention to Malala’s worthy quest. Within a week, she was flown to London for more advanced medical treatment. She has endured numerous operations over the past four months.

Last week, though, her doctors expressed hope that a recent cranial reconstruction and the placement of a cochlear implant will be the last of the surgeries she needs.

Malala clearly intends to keep setting a brave example in the ongoing struggle against radical Islam. Though she’s still in England, she plans to return to her Pakistani homeland — and the Pakistani government says it supports her efforts.

Vital Voices and other international organizations are backing her, too.

And Malala is not backing down.

Instead, she’s living up to this inspiring blog entry she posted four years ago:

“I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education. And I am afraid of no one.”