"If I didn't do it, who would?" she said.

Girls who are scared should fight their fear, she said.

"Don't sit in your bedrooms.

"God will ask you on the day of judgment, 'Where were you when your people were asking you ... when your school fellows were asking you and when your school was asking you ...'Why I am being blown up?' "

On Oct. 9, Taliban assassins attacked a van that carried Malala and other schoolchildren. They demanded that the children identify her.

Terrified, the children did it, and the men fired, wounding two other girls in addition to hitting Malala.

"We do not tolerate people like Malala speaking against us," a Taliban spokesman later said, as Malala, in a Pakistani hospital, breathed with the help of a ventilator.

The Taliban vowed that if Malala survived, they would come after her again.