Malala Yousafzai is an 'icon of courage and hope', says Pakistan army chief People hold a portrait of Malala Yousafzai during a protest in Peshawar condemning the attack on her by the Taliban. Photograph: Rahat Dar/EPA Pakistan's powerful military chief has put himself at the centre of a national outrage over the attempted murder of a 14-year-old girl who had dared to speak out against the Taliban. General Ashfaq Kayani, the army chief, flew to the bedside of Malala Yousafzai as she lay recovering in a military hospital in the city of Peshawar after a three-hour operation to remove a bullet lodged in her head when she was shot on Tuesday. Yousafzai and at least two other girls were attacked as they sat on a school bus waiting to return home after a mid-term examination at her school in Mingora, the major city in Swat, a picturesque valley three hours' drive from Islamabad. Her attackers had approached the vehicle and asked for Yousafzai by name before one of them opened fire. He said Malala, who is still unconscious, also moved her hand slightly after coming out of surgery. In a statement published online by the military, Kayani said Yousafzai was "an icon of courage and hope" and the attack showed "how little regard they [the Taliban] have for human life and how low they can fall in their cruel ambition to impose their twisted ideology." The statement added: "Such inhuman acts clearly expose the extremist mindset the nation is facing." The attack is embarrassing for the army, which has made much of its 2009 efforts to crush what by then had been several years of creeping Taliban takeover of Swat. Many Swatis said the Yousafzai attack proved the situation was still parlous. "Before this incident we were thinking that there is peace in our Swat," said Iqbal Hussain, one of Yousafzai's teachers. But now all people have the feeling that militants are living among us. However, Hussain said that the rest of the girls at the school remained "high-spirited" and anxious to return to classes now that the school is temporarily closed. Kayani's statement came amid condemnation from political parties, including a motion passed unanimously by MPs. Public fury seems to have built up as the country's rolling news channels devoted considerable attention to the story and the Taliban announced they would make another attempt on her life if she survived. Perhaps conscious of what one media pundit described as a "major PR disaster" for the Taliban, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) circulated a lengthy statement that tried to justify the assassination with references to Islamic history and the Qur'an. It said that although the TTP did not believe in attacking women, it was obliged to kill anyone "whosever leads campaign against Islam and sharia" and that her main crime was "because of her pioneer role in preaching secularism and so-called enlightened moderation." It also said that Yousafzai had been guilty of inviting Muslims to hate the mujahideen, as the insurgents style themselves. Yousafzai, who won Pakistan's first peace prize for her efforts, did indeed speak out against the Taliban, initially on a blog published under a pseudonym on the BBC Urdu service website. There she chronicled the terror of life in Swat when the area was being fought over by the Taliban and the government. Later she spoke confidently in public against extremism and spoke of her desire to enter national politics. Some observers said Kayani was not just channelling the mood of anti-Taliban fury but also trying to build a national consensus around tackling militancy in Pakistan. In August he broke new ground in the debate over the country's vexed relationship with militant groups in a major speech in which he said the "war against terrorism and extremism" was the responsibility of the whole nation. Cyril Almeida, a newspaper columnist, said Kayani was attempting to "channel public anger and sustain it." He said: "What the army understands is that anger and the sort of disgust currently felt towards the militants helps the state in their fight against militancy." The issue of how best to deal with the threat of militancy divides opinion in Pakistan, with some leading politicians, in particular Imran Khan, arguing for negotiations with a movement that they regard as a reaction to Pakistan's involvement in the "US war in Afghanistan." But in the wake of Yousafzai's shooting, and the images of the young girl unconscious in hospital, public sympathy for the Taliban appears to have plummeted. Khan, who led a rally of supporters towards the country's tribal areas on Sunday to protest against US drone strikes against militants, prompted a storm of criticism on Twitter and the country's chatshows for being too soft on the Taliban. He responded by announcing he would visit Yousafzai on Thursday and even offered to pay for her medical treatment. Raza Rumi, from the Jinnah Institute thinktank, suggested Khan would have to toughen his public stance against the Taliban. "A couple of days ago he was talking of making peace with the Taliban and portraying them as a reaction to a few hundred killings by the drones," he said. Now his entire argument has fallen flat and he is making some rapid adjustments to his message. Public anger was also expressed in demonstrations held at the press clubs of most major Pakistani cities. Mohammad Malick, a television presenter and former newspaper editor, said the attempted killing of Yousafzai could prove to be a "turning point" that could embolden those who dare to speak out against the Taliban. "The overwhelming majority is of the view that the Taliban have crossed the thin red line this time," he said. There is extreme shock and damnation, but the positive thing is that we see people are coming out talking about it. It is forcing people to take public positions.