Pakistani police make arrests in shooting of teen activist

(AP) — Pakistani police have arrested a number of suspects in the case of a 14-year-old girl shot and wounded by the Taliban for promoting education for girls and criticising the fundamentalist Islamic movement, officials said Friday.



The shooting of Malala Yousufzai along with two classmates while they were on their way home from school Tuesday horrified people in Pakistan and internationally.



The shooting has been followed by an outpouring of support for a girl, who earned the enmity of the Taliban for publicising their acts and speaking about the importance of education for girls.



The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying that the girl was promoting "Western thinking."



Providing more details, a Taliban spokesman said the top leadership of the Taliban's Swat Valley chapter decided two months ago to kill Yousufzai in a carefully planned attack after her family ignored repeated warnings.



Police have been questioning people in the town of Mingora, where the shooting took place.



Mingora police chief Afzal Khan Afridi said arrests had been made, but he declined to give any details about the number of people detained or what role they're suspected in having in the shooting.



He said he did not want to endanger the ongoing investigation.



Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters Friday that the two gunmen, who staged the attack were not among those arrested, but he said investigators had identified the masterminds and efforts were under way to capture all those involved.



The Taliban spokesman, Sirajuddin Ahmad, said her family had been warned three times — the most recent warning coming last week — before the decision was made to execute her.



The girl was initially airlifted from Mingora to a military hospital in the frontier city of Peshawar, where doctors removed a bullet from her neck.



On Thursday, she was transferred to a hospital in Rawalpindi, where the Pakistani army is headquartered near the capital, Islamabad.



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