YOUNGEST NOBEL LAUREATE MALALA RETURN TO PAKISTAN.

Nobel laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai returned to her native Pakistan on Thursday, six years after she was shot by Taliban gunmen over her advocacy for schooling for girls.
Malala, who is now 20, was 15 when a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus in northwest Pakistan, singled her out, and shot her in the head. She was transported to the U.K. for treatment, and joined by her family, has lived there since then.

In Pakistan on Thursday, television boradcasts showed Malala and her father arriving in the lounge at Islamabad's Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

Last week on Twitter, Yousafzai expressed a longing for her homeland. She now lives in Great Britain.
"On this day, I cherish fond memories of home, of playing cricket on rooftops and singing the national anthem in school. Happy Pakistan Day!" she wrote on March 23.

After surviving the attack, Yousafzai was airlifted abroad and underwent surgery.

The Pakistani Taliban, who seized control of her hometown in Pakistan's Swat Valley before being pushed out by the army in 2009, later claimed the attack in response to her blog for the BBC Urdu service advocating girls' education.

The hardline Islamist movement blew up girls' schools and imposed a strict interpretation of sharia law during their rule over Swat.

Earlier this month, a new girls' school built with her Nobel prize money opened in Shangla, near her home district of Swat.

Yousafzai is currently studying at Oxford University.

While she is arguably the most recognisable Pakistani in the world, Yousafzai - known almost universally as Malala - is a polarising figure at home.

She is frequently attacked by conservative Pakistanis as portraying her country in a bad light and seeking her own fame.