As coverage of the shooting — and the appalled reaction to it — swept across the Pakistani and international news media, the Taliban began issuing lengthy statements trying to justify the targeting of Malala, who had defied them by insisting on the right of girls to go to school.
They also complained that “this filthy, godless media has taken huge advantage of this situation, and journalists have started passing judgment on us,” raising the prospect of killing those journalists.
Reporters in northwestern Pakistan, the region where the Taliban are active, say they have been alerted by authorities of an increased risk to their security and some of them have received warnings that they are being specifically targeted.
“Things after Malala have become more tense, as the Taliban is very angry with the way the attack was reported,” said a veteran journalist in Peshawar, the main city in the restive northwestern region near the border with Afghanistan. “We are scared, but what can we do? We have to work.”
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