DHAKA: The Pakistani Taliban hit out at teenage education activist Malala Yousafzai over her Nobel peace prize on Friday, slamming her as a ‘soldier against Islamic society’.

Malala became a global icon after she was shot and nearly killed by the Taliban in October 2012 for insisting that girls had a right to an education, reports the NDTV.

The 17-year-old vowed to continue her struggle for every child’s right to go to school when she collected her Nobel at a ceremony in Oslo on Wednesday.

She is the youngest ever Nobel peace laureate, and the first Pakistani to claim the prize, but some in her home country condemn her as a Western agent- including the militants who shot her.

Muhammad Umar Khorasani, spokesman for the main faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by Mullah Fazlullah, told AFP that Malala had won the Nobel Prize for ‘promoting Western culture, not education’.

Pakistan’s patriarchal society often relegates women to subservient domestic roles, but Malala has praised her father Ziauddin, a schoolteacher, for encouraging her to pursue her dreams.

The militant spokesman singled him out for criticism.

“Malala’s father Ziauddin has made an agreement with the Western powers to destroy Pashtun culture and Pakistan,” Khorasani said, referring to the dominating ethnic group in the country’s northwest, where Malala is from.

“Her father is using Malala as a soldier against Islamic society and teachings of Islam.”

BDST: 1631 HRS, DEC 12, 2014