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Fazl Doubts Malala Attack
[An Nahar] The leader of Pakistain's largest religious political party has cast doubt on the Taliban shooting of schoolgirl activist MalalaYousufzai, saying he did not believe she was hit in the head.

The 15-year-old narrowly escaped with her life when Taliban gunnies shot her on her school bus last month for daring to campaign for the right of girls to go to school -- something the Islamist beturbanned goons bitterly oppose.

Doctors in Britannia, where she is now recovering, say the bullet from the attack grazed her brain and traveled through her head and neck before lodging in her left shoulder.

But the pro-Taliban holy man Fazlur Rehman, the head of the Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam
...Assembly of Islamic Clergy, or JUI, is a Pak Deobandi (Hanafi) political party. There are two main branches, one led by Maulana Fazlur Rahman, and one led by Maulana Samiul Haq. Fazl is active in Pak politix and Sami spends more time running his madrassah. Both branches sponsor branches of the Taliban, though with plausible deniability...
Fazl (JUIF) party, the largest religious faction in Pakistain's parliament, dismissed the medical assessment.

"Pictures shown on social media have shown the whole character as suspicious because there was no sign of injury after the dressing was removed," he told a rally in northwest Pakistain on Sunday.

"It shows that the bullet did not hit her in the head."

Images released by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham showed Malala, who rose to fame in 2009 with a blog for BBC Urdu charting the brutalities of Taliban rule in Swat, showed the schoolgirl sitting up with her family, much of her head covered with a blue towel.

The cold-blooded attempt to murder the youngster shocked the world, but many in Pakistain -- where conspiracy theories on all subjects abound -- believe the incident was part of a plot to defame the Taliban and Islam.

Social media in Pakistain is full of such comments and pictures of Malala, questioning the credibility of the attack.

Malala is said to be recovering well in Britannia, but needs to fight off an infection before having reconstructive surgery to repair her skull.

Posted by: Fred 2012-11-06
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=355428