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Karzai: Afghanistan, Pakistan Should Coordinate Anti-terrorism Efforts


Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during a news conference in Kabul (file photo).
Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during a news conference in Kabul (file photo).
Afghanistan's president says he wants Afghanistan and Pakistan to mount a collaborative plan of action against terrorism and extremism.

Hamid Karzai has sent letters to Pakistan's political and religious leaders about the terrorist attack on 14-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head and neck last week by the Taliban.

The president said in the letters that neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan face "a dangerous enemy" who seeks to doom the present and the future of their countries to "darkness and ignorance."

Yousafzai was attacked Tuesday as she left school. She has been internationally recognized for promoting education for girls and documenting Taliban atrocities in the area near her home in the northwestern Swat Valley.

Yousafzai remains unconscious and on a ventilator.

On Saturday, children across Pakistan and Afghanistan prayed for her recovery.

On Friday, Pakistani police arrested several shooting suspects in Swat Valley.

Yousafzai wrote a blog published by the BBC, describing life under the Taliban in 2008 and 2009, when militants carried out beheadings and other violence in the Swat Valley.
A Taliban spokesman in the Swat Valley said Friday the group's leaders decided a few months ago to kill Yousafzai, and assigned gunmen to carry it out. The Taliban has said she is "pro-West," and that she denounced the militant group and called U.S. President Barack Obama her idol.
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