A spokesman for the militants said Yousafzai, then just 15, was targeted because “she was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban, and she was calling President Obama her idol.”

At the age of 11, Yousafzai began writing for the BBC Urdu service about life under strict Taliban rule and the importance of girls’ schooling. Yousafzai said in a brief speech at a ceremony at Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s office that she will continue to campaign for the education of girls and asked Pakistanis to be united on issues like providing better health care and education. Jewel Samad / AFP – Getty Images

“The visit was kept a secret due to security issues,” a relative said on condition of anonymity after Yousafzai was greeted at Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad by government and security officials. She was awarded the Nobel in 2014, along with Indian child-rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, and said on the day she collected the prize that “Education is one of the blessings of life, and one of its necessities.”

She remained in Britain after undergoing medical treatment there and was accepted to the University of Oxford last year.
Human rights activist Malala Yousafzai returns to her native Pakistan for the first time since being shot in October 2012 to meet with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.