While a middle schooler stressed over exams, an armed militant group held a meeting to plot her assassination. This deep dive goes beyond the headlines of the bus attack to track the deliberate evolution of Malala Yousafzai, a girl who used her voice as her first weapon in what amounts to a master class in information warfare.

Raised by a father who treated her as an intellectual equal and built her psychological armor, Malala volunteered at 11 to anonymously document life under the Taliban's occupation of the Swat Valley for the BBC. Her emotional counter-narrative bypassed militant propaganda; her growing visibility became both a shield and a target.

• Blogging under the pseudonym Gul Makai during a total ban on girls' education
• The 2012 shooting and airlift to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham
• How the attack ...