Taliban Reiterate Vow to Kill Pakistani Girl

A. Majeed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Children prayed for the recovery of Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban, at their school in Peshawar on Friday.

By DECLAN WALSH

Published: October 12, 2012

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — The police said Friday that they had made several arrests in connection with the Taliban’s shooting of Malala Yousafzai, a 14-year-old education activist who was critically injured, but militant commanders in northwestern Pakistan reiterated their intention to kill the schoolgirl or her father.

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Class Dismissed

Related

• The Lede Blog: Pakistani Girl Airlifted to Military Hospital (October 11, 2012)

• The Lede Blog: My 'Small Video Star' Fights for Her Life (October 9, 2012)

• Pakistanis Unite in Outrage Over Girl’s Shooting by Taliban (October 11, 2012)

• The Lede Blog: Pakistani Activist, 14, Is Shot by Taliban (October 9, 2012)

After Friday Prayer, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf visited Ms. Yousafzai’s family at a heavily guarded military hospital in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, where doctors were considering whether to send her abroad for treatment.

“The next 48 hours will be critical,” Mr. Ashraf told reporters. Extremists targeted Ms. Yousafzai, who was shot in the head and neck while riding in a school bus on Tuesday in Mingora, because, he said, “they were scared of the power of her vision.”

“She is the true face of Pakistan,” he added.

The interior minister, Rehman Malik, said the authorities had identified the two gunmen behind the shooting, but they had not been captured. Police officials in the Swat Valley, where the attack took place, said that they had rounded up about 70 people for questioning, including employees of Ms. Yousafzai’s school and the bus driver, and that some of them had been formally arrested.

Afzal Khan Afridi, the Mingora police chief, declined to specify the number of people arrested or what role they were suspected of playing in the shooting, saying he said he did not want to endanger the investigation.  

A 15-year-old girl who was wounded alongside Ms. Yousafzai described how easily the Taliban had been able to attack the school bus. “A young man in his early 20s approached the bus and asked for Malala,” the girl, Kainat Riaz, said in an interview at her family’s home in Swat. “Then he started firing.”

The fate of Ms. Yousafzai, who has become a symbol of defiance of the Taliban’s extremist ideology, has gripped Pakistan. Television stations have provided intensive coverage of her medical treatment, and leaders from across the nation’s political and religious spectrums have united in condemning the attack.

A senior official from Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest religious party, accompanied Mr. Ashraf to the hospital. So did the parliamentary leader of the secular Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which dominates Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi.

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, the foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, described the attack as a traumatic “wake-up call” that could prove to be a turning point in Pakistan’s war against extremism.

The army is directing efforts to save Ms. Yousafzai, who is on a ventilator. Government officials have estimated her chances of survival at 50 to 70 percent.

Some analysts have speculated that the army could leverage the unusually strong criticism of the Taliban in this case to begin a new military operation in the tribal belt, but others said the uproar would not ultimately lead to a crackdown.

The shooting embarrassed the army because it had claimed to have largely eliminated the Taliban from the Swat Valley after a major military operation in 2009. Yet Ms. Riaz described how the gunmen stopped their bus, which was carrying about 16 students, in the center of Mingora, which is the valley’s main town and is near a military checkpoint.

Ms. Riaz, contradicting earlier reports, she said that the attackers were not masked and that the gunmen did not board the bus, but opened fire from outside after identifying Ms. Yousafzai.

A third student who was wounded, Shazia Ramzan, is at a hospital in Peshawar. Ms. Riaz said that her family had left the valley but returned after the 2009 military operation, and that she had been studying for two years.

“We were feeling good because there was no sign of the Taliban,” she said as two police officers stood guard outside her home.

Sirajuddin Ahmad, the spokesman for the Taliban in the Swat Valley, said that Ms. Yousafzai became a target because she had been “brainwashed” into making anti-Taliban statements by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai.

“We warned him several times to stop his daughter from using dirty language against us, but he didn’t listen and forced us to take this extreme step,” he said.

Both father and daughter remain on the Taliban’s list of intended victims, he said.

Sana ul Haq contributed reporting from Mingora, Pakistan, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan.

8 Key Issues Missing From the Debates So Far

By David A. Graham

inShare1 Oct 12 2012, 12:42 PM ET 

From gay marriage to jobs, the Federal Reserve to women's health, candidates have dodged some of the most important questions facing the United States.

Reuters

The reviews are in and, with the exception of a few right-wing commentators, everyone thinks Martha Raddatz did a great job moderating the vice-presidential debate Thursday. At the very least, she was better than Jim Lehrer, who ineffectually sat on stage during the first debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. But both debates have skipped over serious, important issues, and have given too little attention, or the wrong kind of attention, to others. Conor Friedersdorf noted the total absence of discussion about civil-liberties issues at the first debate, a pattern that continued Thursday night. But there are plenty more missing. Here's a catalogue of them, in no particular order:

1. Gay Marriage and Gay Rights: As my colleague Steve Clemons noted, there was no mention of gay marriage in Thursday night's debate, even with Joe Biden -- who precipitated President Obama's public support for it -- on stage. There was no mention during the first debate, either; nor was there any discussion of don't ask, don't tell. This despite the fact that a sitting president has for the first time called for gay marriage and that the country is nearly evenly divided on whether it should be legal. There are major ballot issues on same-sex marriage coming up in November in Maryland, Minnesota, Maine, and Washington State. There's a good chance that the Supreme Court will take up gay marriage in the coming term. And same-sex marriage is one of the issues on which the difference between the two campaigns is most stark.

2. Abortion and Women's Health: The last two years have seen pitched battles over reproductive health, both at the federal level -- where the Obama Administration mandated that all employers cover birth control, to heated opposition from Catholics and evangelicals -- and at the state level, where states have tried to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood and passed laws significantly narrowing access to abortion and attempting to require procedures such as transvaginal ultrasounds. But there was no mention of this in the first debate; in fact, as Emily Chertoff noted, neither candidate even said the word "women." Raddatz did a little better, asking a question about abortion late in the vice-presidential debate, but as National Review's Ramesh Ponnuru points out, her decision to frame it in terms of a personal faith matter significantly affected the way Biden and Ryan answered the question. Ryan briefly, but importantly, stated that a Romney Administration would support a ban on abortions with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother; Biden briefly, but importantly, noted that control of the Supreme Court and with it Roe v. Wade was in the balance. But there was little further discussion of women's reproductive health as a policy matter.

3. Voting Rights: Efforts to restrict voting are sweeping across the country, an epidemic Andrew Cohen has exhaustively chronicled. Supporters say the laws are essential to prevent voter fraud, although they have produced no evidence that fraud is a widespread issue. Opponents argue that such laws are mostly an effort to suppress minority votes. In Ohio, the Obama campaign has battled the state attorney general Jon Husted, a Republican, in court over early voting -- which Husted himself stated mostly benefit "urban -- read African-American" communities. Regardless of the position one takes, voting is one of the most fundamental rights Americans enjoy. But the laws and resulting court cases haven't been mentioned once.

4. Climate Change: During his nomination-acceptance speech, Mitt Romney went out of his way to sneer at those worried about global warming. During his nomination-acceptance speech, Barack Obama went out of his way to note that climate change was not a hoax. But the only mention of temperatures in both debates came when Joe Biden and Paul Ryan bickered over the fighting season in Afghanistan on Thursday. Voters deserve to know why, if Obama thinks warming is so important, he has almost entirely dropped any policy push on it. And they deserve to know why Romney, once a staunch climate-change warrior, now can't even say whether he believes there's man-made warming occurring.

5. The Federal Reserve: With Congress deadlocked and incapable of agreeing to any fiscal policy regime, it's hard to remember a time when the Federal Reserve has been more important to the nation's economic health -- or more politically charged. Fed Chair Ben Bernanke's term expires in January 2014, meaning the next president will appoint a successor. Mitt Romney has already said he would not reappoint Bernanke. Ryan has strong (and fairly radical) ideas about the Fed. No candidate has been asked about the Fed, Bernanke, or quantitative easing.

6. Housing: Remember housing? The hugely important sector that brought the economy to its knees? You'd be forgiven for letting it slip your mind, since neither campaign wants to talk about it much. The Obama Administration has found that none of several efforts to aid the market has had much impact; Romney doesn't really have any ideas either. Biden and Ryan brought up the topic only in the course of discussing the mortgage interest-rate deduction. Romney blamed Dodd-Frank for making it hard to get a mortage; Obama vaguely praised the slow recovery of the sector. Neither moderator has made any attempt to push the candidates.

7. Jobs: Though we hear again and again that employment is the essential issue in the election, there's almost no substantive discussion of the matter. Asked about jobs last night, Joe Biden veered into a discussion of tax policy and the auto bailout; Paul Ryan repeated, mantra-like, that he and Romney had a five-point plan, without explaining what it was or how it would work. There was more discussion during the presidential debate, but neither candidate offered an explanation for how he would create the millions of jobs necessary to bring the nation back to pre-recession employment levels. As I've written before, neither candidate has a credible plan to create anything like the number Americans need.

8. The Euro Crisis: There is no more imminent danger to the American economy that the continued turmoil in Spain, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere in Europe. But has it come up in any debate? Romney mentioned Spain in passing, criticizing the country's large spending on government. Beyond that, there's been no discussion of what threat Europe poses, how either man would deal with Europe going forward, and how they would insulate the U.S. from contagion.
One can spin various theories for why these essential issues haven't been discussed. Social issues like abortion and gay rights seem to be viewed as somewhat vulgar by the Very Serious People in charge of the debates, but they're hugely important to many voters, especially in the Midwest. Voting rights, with its racial content, is a minefield they might just as soon avoid. The Fed and the European economy are rarefied subjects that are tough to discuss in a manner intelligible to average voters during the brief time slots allotted to answer questions. Climate change is thought -- perhaps wrongly -- to be a political loser among all but the Democratic base. Neither ticket has much to offer voters on housing or jobs. And neither of the first two moderators has been an economic-policy specialist. But time is running out: The final debate is on foreign policy, meaning there's only one chance, at next week's debate, to force Obama and Romney to reckon with these issues.
What else is missing? Look at the transcripts and judge for yourself.

In Requests for Security in Libya, Focus Was on Tripoli

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK LANDLER

October 12, 2012 

This is an interesting article. the WH may not have known about the request to extend the stay of security forces beyond August, possibility. The idea that the State Department has to repay the Pentagon for the use of these soldiers, are they for hire ? It sounds a little screwy to me.
I think that the State Department is owed more security for our embassies, and the thought of relying on the countries our embassies are in for protection bothers me, because that means trusting those we may not know who they are.  Read this article and tell me if I am crazy, reading it wrong, or reading to much into it.

Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

The American mission in Benghazi, Libya, was seen in flames on Sept. 11 during a protest by an armed group said at the time to have been protesting a film produced in the United States.

WASHINGTON — In the weeks leading up to the attack last month on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, diplomats on the ground sounded increasingly urgent alarms. 

• In a stream of diplomatic cables, embassy security officers warned their superiors at the State Department of a worsening threat from Islamic extremists, and requested that the teams of military personnel and State Department security guards who were already on duty be kept in service. 

• The requests were denied, but they were largely focused on extending the tours of security guards at the American Embassy in Tripoli — not at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, 400 miles away. 

• And State Department officials testified this week during a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that extending the tour of additional guards — a 16-member military security team — through mid-September would not have changed the bloody outcome because they were based in Tripoli, not Benghazi. 

The handling of these requests has now been caught up in a sharply partisan debate over whether the Obama administration underestimated the terrorist threat in Libya. In a debate with Representative Paul D. Ryan on Thursday night, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said White House officials were not told about requests for any additional security. 

“We weren’t told they wanted more security again,” Mr. Biden said. 

The Romney campaign on Friday pounced on the conflicting statements, accusing Mr. Biden of continuing to deny the nature of the attack. The White House scrambled to explain the apparent contradiction between Mr. Biden’s statement and the testimony from State Department officials at the House hearing. 

The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said Friday that security issues related to diplomatic posts in Libya and other countries were dealt with at the State Department, not the White House. Based on interviews with administration officials, as well as in diplomatic cables, and Congressional testimony, those security decisions appear to have been made largely by midlevel State Department security officials, and did not involve Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or her top aides. 

While it is unclear what impact a handful of highly trained additional guards might have had in Benghazi were they able to deploy there, some State Department officials said it would probably not have made any difference in blunting the Sept. 11 assault from several dozen heavily armed militants.

“An attack of that kind of lethality, we’re never going to have enough guns,” Patrick F. Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, said at Wednesday’s hearing. “We are not an armed camp ready to fight it out.”

A senior administration official said that the military team, which was authorized by a directive from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, was never intended to have an open-ended or Libya-wide mission. 

“This was not a SWAT team with a DC-3 on alert to jet them off to other cities in Libya to respond to security issues,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. 

Security in Benghazi had been a growing concern for American diplomats this year. 

• In April, the convoy of the United Nations special envoy for Libya was attacked there. 
• In early June, a two-vehicle convoy carrying the British ambassador came under attack by rocket-propelled grenades. 
• Militants struck the American mission with a homemade bomb, but no one was hurt. In late June, the Red Cross was attacked and the organization pulled out. 

“We were the last thing on their target list to remove from Benghazi,” Lt. Col. Andrew Wood of the Utah National Guard, who was deployed in Tripoli as the leader of the American military security unit, told the House committee.

But friends and colleagues of Ambassador Stevens said he was adamant about maintaining an American presence in Benghazi, the heart of the opposition to the Qaddafi government.

 

“Our people can’t live in bunkers and do their jobs,” Mrs. Clinton said Friday. “But it is our solemn responsibility to constantly improve, to reduce the risks our people face and make sure they have the resources they need to do their jobs.”

At American diplomatic facilities overseas, the host nation is primarily responsible for providing security outside the compound’s walls. 

Inside the compound, the State Department is in charge, relying on a mix of diplomatic security officers, local contract guards and Marines. 

The Marines are responsible for guarding classified documents, which they are instructed to destroy if there is a breach of the compound. Senior diplomats are protected by diplomatic security officers, not a detachment of Marines, as Mr. Ryan asserted in Thursday night’s debate. 

In deciding whether to extend a military security team, 

1. The State Department often faces a difficult financial decision at a time when its security budget is under severe pressure. 
2. The department must reimburse the Pentagon for the cost of these soldiers, an expense that can quickly run into the millions of dollars. 
3. For that reason, the State Department typically pushes to make the transition to local contractors, who are much cheaper. 

In their debate, Mr. Biden responded to Mr. Ryan’s attacks by accusing him and his fellow Republicans of cutting the administration’s request for embassy security and construction. House Republicans this year voted to cut back the administration’s request, but still approved more than was spent last year.

In an agreement between the Pentagon and the State Department, the military team was extended twice — December 2011 and March 2012 — but when it came to a third extension, Eric A. Nordstrom, the former chief security officer in Libya, said he was told he could not request another extension beyond August. 

• Charlene Lamb, a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, said at the hearing that a request from Mr. Nordstrom to extend the military team was only a recommendation and that the State Department had been right not to heed it. 

• Ms. Lamb also testified that budget considerations played no part in considering additional security. Decisions on diplomatic security went no higher than Ms. Lamb and, in limited cases, Mr. Kennedy, officials said. 

• The broader strategy, Ms. Lamb said, was to phase out the American military team and rely more on the Libyan militiamen who were protecting the compound along with a small number of American security officers. 

• Ms. Lamb said this model of relying on locally hired guards had worked at the United States Embassy in Yemen. 

In a July 9 cable signed by Ambassador Stevens, the embassy requested that the State Department extend the tours for a minimum of three security personnel in Benghazi. The department had earlier approved a request for five guards for the mission, which was still in effect at the time of the July 9 cable. 

Five American security agents were at the compound at the time of the assault, Ms. Lamb said, though it was later noted that only three were based at the compound and that two had accompanied Mr. Stevens from Tripoli. She said there were also three members of a Libyan militia who were helping to protect the compound. 
 

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting.


ributed reporting.

New Front in Campaign as G.O.P. Seizes on Libya Attack

By PETER BAKER and TRIP GABRIEL

October 12, 2012
	Jim Wilson/The New York Times Mitt Romney continued his criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the Libya attack during a speech at a campaign event on Friday in Richmond, Va.

 The Vice-Presidential Debate 

Follow along with this interactive replay of the vice-presidential debate, using fact checks and graphics to take a closer look at attacks and assertions by Mr. Biden and Mr. Ryan.

Related  

• On Foreign Policy, Rivals Differing in Style but Often Similar in Substance (October 12, 2012)  
• Show of Teeth Spurs a Debate Over Biden (October 13, 2012)

 

October 12, 2012

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s handling of the Libya attack has opened a new front in the presidential campaign just weeks before Election Day as Republicans seize on it to question the president’s performance as commander in chief.

The dispute over the episode escalated after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said during the debate on Thursday night that “we weren’t told” that Americans in Libya wanted security bolstered, despite Congressional testimony that the administration had turned down requests. Mitt Romney’s campaign on Friday accused the vice president of trying “to mislead the American public.”

The conflicting statements over security came after the administration’s fluctuating assessments of the attack on the diplomatic post in Benghazi that killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. For President Obama, who had counted on foreign policy as a political strength, the issue has put him on the defensive, while Republicans who had focused on the economy now see a chance to undercut his credibility with the public on national security.

In a sense, the issue goes beyond foreign policy, which has not been a top priority for voters this year, polls show. Instead, Republicans are framing the matter as a larger indictment of Mr. Obama’s leadership and transparency, presenting him as unable to create enough jobs at home or protect American interests abroad, while trying to shift the blame to others. Democrats counter by accusing Republicans of politicizing a national tragedy.

Mr. Romney wasted little time in criticizing the vice president for contradicting testimony about security concerns in Libya. “He’s doubling down on denial,” Mr. Romney said during a rally in Richmond, Va. “And we need to understand exactly what happened, as opposed to just having people brush this aside. When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, sworn testimony, of State Department officials, American citizens have a right to know just what’s going on, and we’re going to find out.”

Two officials in charge of security in Libya told a House committee this week that they asked for more security officers but were rebuffed by the State Department. Asked about that on Thursday night during his debate with Representative Paul D. Ryan, Mr. Romney’s running mate, Mr. Biden said: “We weren’t told they wanted more security again. We did not know they wanted more security again.”

The White House tried to explain Mr. Biden’s comments by saying that diplomatic security requests were handled by the State Department, not the White House. “The vice president was speaking about himself, the president and the White House,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. “He was not referring to the administration.”

Mr. Carney was pressed repeatedly by reporters to explain what the president and the vice president knew and when they knew it, but he declined to answer in detail. Mr. Carney would not say whether Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden were specifically informed about the security concerns in Libya.

Mr. Carney accused Republicans of hypocrisy for voting against diplomatic security spending, singling out Mr. Ryan. “I find it rich that charges are made about concern over diplomatic security by those who routinely slash funding for diplomatic security to pay for tax cuts,” he said.

The government spent $2.43 billion on diplomatic security in the 2010 fiscal year, when Democrats last controlled both houses of Congress. The figure then fell to $2.29 billion in 2011 before rising to $2.37 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30. The administration asked for $2.84 billion for 2013, but House Republicans whittled that down to $2.62 billion.

Mr. Biden was expecting tough questions in the debate about the Benghazi attack and security concerns at the American mission there, according to people familiar with his preparation. But he still seemed caught off guard when the moderator, Martha Raddatz of ABC News, pressed him on whether American diplomats had requested additional security in Libya.

Senior administration officials said Mr. Biden’s answer was accurate because while the embassy in Tripoli requested an extension of duty for 13 military or diplomatic security officers — which the State Department denied — it did not request additional guards for the mission in Benghazi. Moreover, they said, the request did not reach the White House.

The Libya attack has risen to the forefront of the campaign even as other foreign policy issues, like the war in Afghanistan and the building confrontation with Iran, have remained secondary topics. The administration at first attributed the deaths of Mr. Stevens and the others to an opportunistic attack taking advantage of protests against an anti-Islam film. Officials eventually termed the assault a terrorist attack tied to Qaeda sympathizers and played down the protest angle.

“First they blame a YouTube video and a nonexistent riot,” Mr. Ryan told supporters in Lancaster, Ohio. “Then when the country’s getting upset about it, they blame Romney and Ryan for getting people upset about it.”

How much the issue has influenced voters remains uncertain. Approval of Mr. Obama’s handling of foreign policy fell from 54 percent in August to 49 percent last month after the Benghazi attack, while disapproval rose from 40 percent to 46 percent, according to a survey by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal at the end of September.

At the same time, Republicans are focusing attention on national security even as they worry that the economy may not offer as much traction as they once thought. Polls have shown some increasing optimism about the economy as unemployment has fallen to 7.8 percent, the lowest it has been during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Mr. Romney ratcheted up his criticism of the president over Benghazi all week, but he has intentionally stayed one or two steps behind fiercer Republican critics in Congress, his advisers said. He has not joined Congressional Republicans in accusing the administration of playing down a terrorist link to the attack to save the president from embarrassment close to the election.

The campaign wants to avoid a repetition of its first hasty response to the attack, when Mr. Romney accused the administration of apologizing to protesters, a statement widely criticized as irresponsible. Mr. Romney began the week with a speech on foreign policy at Virginia Military Institute that was intended to offer a reset on his credibility as a commander in chief. The effort will continue at the second presidential debate on Tuesday, the first time foreign policy will be a topic between him and Mr. Obama.

Peter Baker reported from Washington, and Trip Gabriel from Richmond, Va.

Pakistan police: Three arrested over teen peace activist shooting

Rashid Mahmood / AFP - Getty Images

Students recite verses from the Quran as they pray for Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head in a Taliban assassination attempt, at her school in Mingora, the main town of Swat Valley on Friday

By Mushtaq Yusufzai, NBC News, and wire reports

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Three suspects in the shooting of 14-year old Pakistani peace campaigner Malala Yousafzai have been arrested, police in Swat Valley claimed Friday.

Police said the suspects, aged between 17 and 22, had claimed the person who organized the attack Tuesday -- in which two other young girls were shot and injured -- was a man called Attaullah.

"During raids in Swat on Thursday night, we captured three culprits involved in attack on Malala,” Swat police chief Gul Afzal Afridi told NBC News by phone.

“During initial interrogation, they revealed that Attaullah was mastermind of the attack and he is still at large,” he added.

Afridi said that the attackers were from the Sangota area of Swat. Police were conducting other raids in an attempt to find Attaullah.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NBC's Amna Nawaz reports on the current condition of Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old Pakistani girl who survived an attack by the Taliban. Police officials have arrested three young men thought to be connected to the shooting.

The Malala Yousufzai I know

The Swat-based Pakistani Taiban refused to confirm if any of their members have been arrested, but claimed they had "dozens" of trained gunmen in the area.

'Satisfactory' condition
Malala, who was nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize in 2011 for articles she wrote under a pseudonym for U.K. broadcaster the BBC and won the National Peace Prize in Pakistan,  was in a "satisfactory" condition at a military hospital, a spokesman said Friday. She started writing for the BBC when she was just 11.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

14-year old Malala Yousafzai remains in critical condition after Taliban gunmen shot her in the head and neck. NBC's Amna Nawaz reports.

Maj. Gen. Asim Saleem Bajwa said she was being kept unconscious and on a ventilator, and doctors would decide when to take her off.

"Her blood pressure is normal. Heartbeat is normal, and thanks to God, her condition is satisfactory," Bajwa said.

Bajwa said the bullet entered her head and went into her neck toward her spine, but it was too soon to say whether she had any significant head injury.

Veronique De Viguerie / Getty Images, file

Three suspects in the shooting of 14-year old Pakistani peace campaigner Malala Yousafzai have been arrested.

Reuters reported Friday that the attack was ordered by one of the Taliban's most feared commanders, Maulana Fazlullah.

 "We had no intentions to kill her but were forced when she would not stop (speaking against us)," said Sirajuddin Ahmad, a spokesman of Swat Taliban now based in Afghanistan's Kunar province.

'I am Malala' declare protesters as vigils continue for girl shot by the Taliban

He said the Taliban held a meeting a few months ago at which they unanimously agreed to kill her. The task was then given to military commanders to carry out.

The shooting sparked widespread condemnation and there has been an outpouring of praise for her bravery from Pakistani and international leaders.

The school she attended in Mingora, owned and operated by her father, reopened Friday. The atmosphere was grim as children and teachers tried to come to terms with what happened to their star pupil.

"We have decided to open the school after two days to overcome the fear among our students that gripped them due to the attack. The number of students is low today. We have not resumed regular teaching activity, but held an assembly to pray for Malala and the other two injured girls," said one of the teachers, Zafar Ali Khan.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

NBC's Amna Nawaz reports on the latest in the efforts to save Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot Tuesday by the Taliban.

Police had been deployed around the school, but even so, many students stayed away.

"Although we have gathered here for to pray for Malala, this shows we will keep her mission going," Ayesha Khan, a ninth-grade student. "Many of the students haven't come due to fear, but I believe this fear will subside ultimately." 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Did Biden Hang the State Department Out to Dry at the Debate?

 House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Hearing included

Ambassador Kennedy on House Oversite Testimony

His use of a very restricted "we" in talking about Libya sure seemed to point a finger at Foggy Bottom.

Oct 12 2012, 3:25 PM ET 
Reuters

Everyone loves Hillary Clinton these days. She's got an approval rating way higher than that of Joe Biden or of President Obama, who can barely muster 50 percent on a good day.

But what if the most politically significant foreign-policy failure of Obama's presidency is actually due to a failure of the diplomatic-security strategy at the Clinton-run State Department?

That's certainly what all the evidence suggests.

Charlene Lamb, deputy assistant secretary for international programs at the State Department's Bureau of Diplomat Security, told a House committee Wednesday that she personally rejected a request for additional diplomatic security in Libya, though what she rejected was not a request for Marines (as Paul Ryan mistakenly appeared to suggest during in the vice presidential debate last night in Kentucky) but extending the presence of a different kind of military personnel specifically detailed to the State Department, as Foreign Policy's Josh Rogin makes clear. As well, the forces were requested for the U.S.'s Tripoli outpost, not the satellite consulate in Benghazi U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens so fatefully was visiting on September 11. The U.S. Embassy to Libya is based in Tripoli, the nation's capital. 

There were five members of the State Department's Diplomatic Security forces at the four-building, 30,000-square-yard compound in Benghazi on Sept. 11, Lamb testified, as well as three members of the Libyan 17th February Brigade. Confronting them were "dozens of attackers," she said. One of those American security officers attempted to evacuate Stevens from the main building's safe haven after it was set on fire with diesel fuel but lost him and information officer Sean Smith in the thick smoke. As the attack continued, the American security agents regrouped and searched the building, locating Smith's body before having to call off the search when the team of approximately 40 Libyans from the 17th February Brigade who had provided reinforcements "advised they could no longer hold the area around the main building and insisted on evacuating the site." The Americans retreated to a nearby "annex" which was most likely a CIA outpost. A U.S. team arrived from Tripoli, Lamb testified, and proceeded to this second location, which came under assault as well. It was during this confrontation at the second location -- not the consular compound -- that former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed and two other America security personnel "critically wounded," according to Lamb and others. Stevens's body was located later that morning at a local hospital, where he had been taken by Libyans at some point.

During the lively opening round of the vice presidential debate, Biden said the issue of diplomatic security in Libya never reached his desk. "We weren't told they wanted more security. We did not know they wanted more security there," he said. Rogin has confirmed Biden was speaking only for himself and the president, and not using "we" to include other parts of the Obama administration.

The Cable asked Deputy National Security Advisor for Communications Ben Rhodes whether Biden was speaking for the entire Obama administration, including the State Department, which acknowledged receiving multiple requests for more Libya security in the months before the attacks. Rhodes said that Biden speaks only for himself and the president and neither of them knew about the requests at the time.
The State Department security officials who testified before House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's panel Wednesday never said they had made their requests to the president, Rhodes pointed out. That would be natural because the State Department is responsible for diplomatic security, not the White House, he said. Rhodes also pointed out that the officials were requesting more security in Tripoli, not Benghazi.

“An attack of that kind of lethality, we’re never going to have enough guns,” Patrick F. Kennedy, under secretary of state for management, said at Wednesday’s hearing. “We are not an armed camp ready to fight it out.”

The Bureau of Diplomatic Security at the State Department is its "security and law enforcement arm" and is overseen by Eric J. Boswell, who earlier served at State under President Clinton and was the Assistant Deputy Director for Security in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for the final three years of George W. Bush's presidency. Lamb is a former police officer and Medal of Valor awardee who has been with Diplomatic Security since 1987, when she became a special agent in San Francisco. She later oversaw a huge team in Beirut during the Civil War in Lebanon, and served in a wide variety of front-line diplomatic security posts overseas before rising through the ranks to her current position under Clinton.

At the House Oversight Committee hearing convened by its chairman, Darrell Issa of California, Lamb defended her decision-making.

"We had the correct number of assets in Benghazi at the time of 9/11 for what had been agreed upon," she said.

"To start off by saying you had the correct number and our ambassador and three other individuals are dead and people are in the hospital recovering because it only took moments to breach that facility, somehow doesn't seem to ring true to the American people," Issa retorted.

 In Requests for Security in Libya, Focus Was on Tripoli The requests were denied, but they were largely focused on extending the tours of security guards at the American Embassy in Tripoli — not at the diplomatic compound in Benghazi, 400 miles away. The handling of these requests has now been caught up in a sharply partisan debate over whether the Obama administration underestimated the terrorist threat in Libya. In an agreement between the Pentagon and the State Department, the military team was extended twice — December 2011 and March 2012 — but when it came to a third extension, Eric A. Nordstrom, the former chief security officer in Libya, said he was told he could not request another extension beyond August. Interesting. Could not have a third extension. Why? It meant protection for our embassy personnel, even though Mr Kennedy stated that even with the added military, they could not have fought off the contention of armed militants that ran the walls of the embassy.

How could it? The death of the U.S. ambassador is a res ipsa loquitur failure of the diplomatic-security apparatus. The thing explains itself: If the ambassador is dead, there was a failure of the security set-up.
That's an administration failure. But more than that, it's a failure of the diplomatic-security strategy at Hillary Clinton's State Department. As Ernesto Londono reported of the Benghazi compound in The Washington Post in late September, "They had not reinforced the U.S. diplomatic outpost there to meet strict safety standards for government buildings overseas. Nor had they posted a U.S. Marine detachment, as at other diplomatic sites in high-threat regions." 

Biden's statement last night was the first administration one I've heard so far to acknowledge that some people were more responsible for that set-up than others.

Martha Raddatz On Debate Moderating: 'When I Hear Things, I Think, I've Got To Jump In There' (VIDEO)

The Huffington Post  |  By Jack Mirkinson Posted: 10/12/2012 7:59 am EDT Updated: 10/12/2012 8:55 am EDT

Martha Raddatz reflected on her widely praised vice presidential debate moderating performance on Friday's "Good Morning America."

Raddatz drew accolades for her sharp, aggressive questioning of Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. Speaking to George Stepanopoulos, she said that she hadn't intended to play such an active role.

"I was a little surprised that I got in as many followups," she said. "You try to listen, and you try to react to what they're saying. Sure, I had a lot of followups written, I had a lot of questions written. But when you're there and you're in the moment, you really have to go with what's happening. So when they were talking to each other, when they were going after each other, you do, you want to sort of step back from that. And yet, when I hear things, I think, I've got to jump in there, I've got to jump in."

Raddatz also said that the setup of the debate, which featured her, Biden and Ryan seated together at a table, changed the tone of the forum.

"That table is very intimate," she said. "That close to one another, and they're sort of going at each other and the laughter and some of the jabs at one another, it felt way more personal just because of that intimacy."

Both candidates, she said, praised her after the debate was through.

"They both said, 'you were tough, but good job,'" she said.

Vice Presidential Debate in pictures

US-VOTE-2012-DEBATE

US Vice President Joe Biden (L) and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R) participate in the vice presidential debate at the Norton Center at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, October 10, 2012, moderated by Martha Raddatz (C) of ABC News. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages)

US-VOTE-2012-DEBATE

A combination picture of the vice presidential debate between US Vice President Joe Biden (L) and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan (R) at the Norton Center at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, October 11, 2012, moderated by Martha Raddatz of ABC News. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages)

Jill Biden, Beau Biden, Hunter Biden

Jill Biden, center, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, sits with her sons Beau Biden, left, and Hunter Biden, right, before the start of the vice presidential debate, at Centre College in Danville, Ky., Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Janna Ryan, Ted Olson, Lady Booth Olson, Betty Douglas

Janna Ryan, second from right, wife of Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., his mother Betty Douglas, Ted Olson, second from left, former solicitor-general of the U.S. and his wife Lady Booth Olson sit in the audience before he start of the vice presidential debate, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, at Centre College in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

US-VOTE-2012-DEBATE

Tommy Munoz (R), a stand-in for Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan, and Ben Boone (C), a stand-in for US Vice President Joe Biden, both students at Centre College, participate in a rehearsal for the vice presidential debate at the Norton Center at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, October 10, 2012. The two candidates will face off October 11 in the first and only vice presidential debate. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/GettyImages)

 Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin gesture after the vice presidential debate at Centre College, Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, in Danville, Ky. (AP Photo/Pool-Michael Reynolds)