Doctors plan surgery for girl shot by Taliban

The 14-year-old was flown to Birmingham Airport on Monday and transferred to the city’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, which has a decade’s experience of treating British military casualties.

Dr Dave Rosser, the hospital’s medical director, said surgeons are going over the procedures Malala will need as part of her “prolonged care” on the road to physical and psychological recovery.

“It’s obvious that Malala will need reconstructive surgery, and we have international experts in that field, so it’s beginning to plan for reconstructive surgery,” he said.

Dr Rosser said there was a security incident overnight on Monday in which people falsely claiming to be Malala’s family were detained by police, but West Midlands Police later clarified no arrests were made and the two visitors were well-wishers.

The teenager was shot with two classmates as they made their way home from school in Swat, in the north west of Pakistan.

She was attacked by the Taliban for promoting the education of girls and criticising the militant group in what Foreign Secretary William Hague described as a “barbaric attack”.

Malala was saved by neurosurgeons in a Pakistani military hospital and has since been in intensive care. She was transferred to the UK by an air ambulance arranged by the United Arab Emirates.