Malala Back In School After Taliban Shooting

A Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban has returned to lessons for the first time since the attack last October.

Malala Yousafzai was flown to the UK to be treated after she was shot for campaigning for the rights of girls to receive an education.

After months of surgery and rehabilitation at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital, the 15-year-old has joined pupils at Edgbaston High School for Girls.

Malala said: "I am excited that today I have achieved my dream of going back to school.

"I want all girls in the world to have this basic opportunity.

"I miss my classmates from Pakistan very much but I am looking forward to meeting my teachers and making new friends here in Birmingham."

She is in Year 9 and will soon be selecting which GCSEs to take.

During the teenager's time in hospital, she had a titanium plate placed in her skull and a cochlear implant fitted.

Islamist gunmen said they shot Malala because she had promoted girls' education and "Western thinking".

She was attacked on a school bus in northwestern Pakistan, with the bullet entering just above her left eye and running along her jaw, "grazing" her brain.

Surgeons in Pakistan removed the bullet before she was flown to the UK.