what does the shooting of Malala Yousafzai have to do with Pakistani Buddhist of second and first millinium B.c.?

Presumably the problems of doing archaeology in terrorist country.

Remember that this general group of terrorists are islamic and has destroyed buddhist remains before, specifically the unique giant buddha statues in the Swat valley.

So this is precarious work, and it is a testament to the archaeologists tenacity that they can get it down. Let's see if we can preserve this against the criminals! :-/

what does the shooting of Malala Yousafzai have to do with Pakistani Buddhist of second and first millinium B.c.?
Or "recently controlled by the Taliban" for that matter, mentioned more than once. Seems irrelevant to me too.

Oops. "Get it done", obviously.

what does the shooting of Malala Yousafzai have to do with Pakistani Buddhist of second and first millinium B.c.?

In that case , you are also forgetting that a country called Pakistan didn't exist until 60 years in the past. However the area would probably fall under Indo-Aryan influence for the time period.
Also if Talibarbarian's knew that this site existed they would've probably destroyed it like the Bamiyan Buddha's

Yes, there's a real risk any such site could go the same way as the Bamiyan Buddhas... The "time before Islam" is considered by Islam as "Jahiliya" - essentially, dark ages, of ignorance, depravity, debauchery and general impiety, thus any sign of any civilisation predating Islam is to be destroyed upon discovery, to preserve the dignity and respect of the One True religion and way of life.

The underlying belief is that all of the earliest civilisations were Islamic, following on from Adam (the first prophet), Eve and the garden of Eden. These became modified over time, developing into more 'pagan' belief systems, and as such, any evidence of these 'corrupted forms of Islam' are an affront to Allah, a temptation towards sacrilege, and must be seen to be vanquished.

Seems like dark age iconoclasm to us, yet, without a hint of irony, it's the exact opposite to them... They're not vandals, they're Ghostbusters, fighting the good fight etc.

Anyway, best of luck to the team here, hopefully they'll have time to record everything before the inevitable happens...