PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A prominent Pakistani Taliban commander has written a letter to a teenage girl shot in the head by the group, expressing regrets that he didn’t warn her before the assassination attempt that propelled her activism to the international stage.
The letter from Adnan Rasheed, however, didn’t apologize for the October attack that left Malala Yousafzai gravely wounded. Rasheed only said he found the shooting “shocking” and wished it hadn’t happened. Rasheed said the letter expressed his own opinion.
Malala, now 16, was shot at close range by Taliban gunmen in October as she left school in Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan. She was flown to Britain for treatment and has not returned since because of persistent Taliban threats against her.
Rasheed said the Taliban did not attack Malala because she was a proponent for girls’ education, but because she was critical of the militant group. “At the end I advise you to come back home,” Rasheed wrote, adding that she should join a female Islamic school and “use your pen for Islam.”
