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The Pakistan Army announced today that it arrested 10 militants suspected of involvement in the shooting of Malala Yousafzai, the teenager who became a celebrity advocate for education after being shot by a Taliban gunman on her way to school.

鈥淭he group involved in the attack on Malala Yousafzai has been arrested,鈥� and will be tried in an antiterrorism court, Army spokesman Major Gen. Asim Bajwa told a press conference. He also tweeted that the men were 鈥渂usted and apprehended by Security forces.鈥�

Pakistan said for two years it was searching for Ms. Yousafzai's attackers after a gunman boarded Malala鈥檚 school bus in the Swat Valley on Oct. 9, 2012 and shot her in the head, also injuring two of her classmates.

Yet Pakistan鈥檚 troubled justice system, public support for extremism in parts of society, and political timing caused the search to drag on.

Reports from October 2012 show that local police immediately rounded up at least 70 people for questioning 鈥� and arrested some聽--聽before releasing them. Pakistani analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi told the Daily Beast at the time that the release of suspects due to lack of evidence was 鈥渁 routine problem in Pakistan."

I. A. Rehman, Secretary-General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told the Monitor at the time that he was 鈥減leased to see the strong reaction鈥� to the shooting, but that it 鈥渨as not the first time that extremist militant groups have carried out atrocities鈥� and he feared little would change.

Al Jazeera described the confusion of the early days of the investigation this way:

The timing of today's arrests also coincide with greater involvement by the powerful military. The Army said the capture of the suspects was due to Army, police, and intelligence agency collaboration, according to Pakistan's Express Tribune. According to army spokesman Bajwa, the men were found聽as part of "Operation Zarb-e-Azb," launched by the military this summer after聽militants attacked the Karachi Airport聽in June.聽

Bajwa also said the arrested men told Mullah Fazlullah, the head of Pakistan鈥檚 Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), that they were the 鈥渕astermind of the attack" on Malala.聽

For some commentators, like Tunku Varadarajan, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the reason the arrests were announced today boils down to politics.

Arrest of Malala's persecutors may also provide a welcome distraction from international attention to nearly three weeks of protests in Islamabad, the capital聽鈥� which has proved an embarrassment for a government trying to gain聽investment and trust from abroad.聽

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