MINGORA, Pakistan — A 15-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot by the Taliban for promoting girls' education has urged Pakistan to reverse a decision to rename a college in her honor to avert militant attacks on students, an official said Friday. Malala Yousafzai, who became a symbol of youth resistance to the Taliban, made the request after students broke into the school, tore down Malala's pictures and boycotted classes in her home town of Mingora. They said renaming the college endangered their lives. Senior government official Kamran Rehman said Malala called him from London, where she was being treated for critical wounds from the attack on Oct. 9. The Taliban said it targeted her for promoting education for secular girls. “Malala Yousafzai called me from Birmingham hospital and said the provincial government should revert to the old name if there are security fears among the girl students,” Rehman said. “Malala expressed concern over the dangers faced by the students after the college was renamed, saying she would not like anyone's life to be threatened.” Malala's case won worldwide recognition for the struggle for women's rights in Pakistan and Taliban have vowed to target her again. Rehman said Malala's father Ziauddin Yousafzai, a former teacher and headmaster who has been appointed a UN adviser on education, backed her stance in the phone call. Pakistani Taliban have a strong presence in the country's tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. A bomb ripped through the office of a local militant commander Maulvi Abbas in Wana, a main town in the South Waziristan tribal region in the northwest, killing him and three of his guards, two intelligence officials said Friday. Abbas was an associate of Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan militant group, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief reporters. It was unclear who had planted the bomb. The attack came weeks after a suicide bomber in the same town attacked Maulvi Nazir, a prominent militant commander who is believed to have a nonaggression pact with the army. Nazir was wounded in the attack, and seven of his men were killed. Since then there has been tension between followers of Nazir and the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in the region. — AP
